“Because it’s so much better not to!” she declared. “You are such a clever, clever man!—and I’m such a silly little woman!—but all the same let us be friends! Oh, you know what I mean!”
Yes, he knew! And his heart gave a big “dunt” in his chest, of nervous disappointment and chagrin, yet—with those frank blue eyes looking trustfully into his own, he could but respond to their confidence. He pressed the little hand he held more closely and smiled. As already hinted, his smile was particularly attractive, and just now with a touch of pathos in it was more so than ever.
“I think I do!” he replied. “But I don’t like ‘hedging.’ I’m a bit of a coward in most things,—but when the worst comes to the worst or the best to the best, I’d rather face the music than run away. I know what I want; and you know what I want. I want to marry you!”
There was a tense pause. She still knelt at his feet,—still looked sweetly up into his face, but she said nothing.
“And,” he continued, steadily, “you don’t want to marry me! There! It’s all out! Isn’t it?”
She smiled.
“Not quite!” she said. “I do know you want to marry me—and—when I first knew you—I rather fancied—yes!—I thought I should like to marry you!”
“You did?—you did?” he exclaimed, a wave of extraordinary youthfulness sweeping over him.
She held up a small warning finger.
“Yes, I did!” she averred. “You seemed so clever—and so kind! But—but—when the kindness was lost in the cleverness—then—then I thought differently!”