“Do you think you could care for Rex?” Tom asked, a great gulp in his throat as he thought of the possibility.
“Not the way you mean,” Rena answered; “but I wish you would tell him I am the Irene meant in the will, but can never care for him except as a friend; then, everything will be honest and fair, and we can have such a good time. I am miserable now. Will you tell him?”
She put her hand on Tom’s, and he felt every nerve quiver from the touch of her fingers. Just for a moment he did not speak, while many conflicting thoughts ran through his mind. Rex ought to be told, but he had seen that in his friend which warned him of danger. Once let him know the truth and he would turn to Rena, first as a duty, perhaps, and then for the girl herself, while she—He was not quite so sure what she might do under pressure, she was so impulsive, and he could not lose her now.
“Rena,” he said at last, “let it drift for a while now we are in it. Rex has taken Irene for you without asking a question. If he speaks to me of the will I shall tell him the truth. Until he does better let him alone unless you think you might care for him. You are sure you could not?”
“Only as a friend,” Rena replied, while for a moment there was silence between them.
Then, taking her hand, Tom said:
“Is there any one you could care for—me, for instance?”
There was a look in Rena’s eyes like a startled fawn as she raised them to Tom’s face, and her lips quivered as if she were about to cry.
“O Tom!” she said, “don’t ask me now. Everything is so mixed and wrong. I don’t know what I want or who I am exactly. Wait ever so long, and maybe I shall know.”
“I’ll wait for years,” Tom answered, with a heaving of his broad chest and a feeling that Rena was as absolutely his as if her word had been pledged to him.