“Is it because you are afraid,—is that it? You can’t wound me now by anything that you may say; but if you will sing me the song and then tell me that your word will always be no, then I shall go away, Zee, and I shall never trouble you again.”
She remembered, as she listened with her head bowed over her hands, the first time she had heard his voice, that was deep and strong. It was only a year ago, in Mrs. Carr’s drawing-room.
She rose and walked away and looked out through the window upon the rain-swept street; she saw the wet leaves clinging in the walk; it was a desolate picture; and something of the outer dolor, the change of the year, touched her.
“I can’t sing your song—any song!” and she turned to him suddenly with laughter in her eyes. “My throat is very painful,” she added and laughed.
He did not smile, but took a step nearer.
“Is the reason because you are afraid? I must know,—I have waited a long time to know.”
“Some other time,—when the sun is shining, then I may sing it,” she said, her eyes upon the window.
“Then if you won’t sing it,—if you are afraid of it,—then you mean for me to believe—”
“Nothing!”
“But I won’t be thrown off so easily, Zee,” he said, as though he had always addressed her so. “You may as well take me seriously,—”