"I am—I am," said Cary. "Give me a moment."
He rested his arm against the red trunk of the cedar and covered his eyes with his hand. Jacqueline stood, looking not at him but at the coloured round of garden. Her heart was fluttering, she knew not why. The moment that he asked went by and, dropping his arm, he turned upon her a face that he had not yet schooled to calmness.
"The evening of the nineteenth of February," he said. "That was the last time we really met. Do you remember?"
"Yes, I remember. It was the day of the deep snow."
Cary regarded her mutely; then, "Yes, that was the important thing. We all remember it because of the snow. You were learning a new song that you promised to sing to me when I came again. But I never heard it—I never came again."
"I know. Why was that?"
"Do you ask?" he cried, and there was pain and anger in his voice. "I thought it not of you."
The crimson surged over Jacqueline's face and throat. She bent toward him impetuously, with a quick motion of her hands. "Ah, forgive me!" she cried. "I know—I know. I was told of the quarrel next day in the coffee house. I—I was more sorry than I can say. I understood. You could not, after that, come again to the house. Oh, more than almost anything, I wish that you and Lewis were friends! It is wrong to try to make you think that that evening does not live in my memory. It does—it does!"
"I am willing to believe as much," he returned, with a strange dryness. "I know that you remember that evening, but I hardly think it altogether on my account—"
The colour faded from her cheek. "On whose, then? My husband's?"