“Perhaps even more readily!” Eva retorted, forgetting her pride in angry pique. “Well, I cannot blame you, but, all the same, I am very grateful.”
He bowed with cold, grave, blue eyes fixed on her face, and she added nervously:
“Do you like flowers? Pray, take all you want.”
“I thank you, but Miss Winton has taken the liberty to give me one. I do not care for any more!” he replied, with freezing indifference that cut her to the heart.
“Now I am quite sure that he loves Ada! He prefers her flowers to mine! Oh, I wish she had not come to be my cruel rival in his heart!”
From his careless tone and proud air she could never have dreamed that he was thinking:
“What a falsehood I told her, poor little Eva! Ah, if she could know how I have treasured all the sweet flowers she used to give me, and for which she let me thank her by taking her in my arms and kissing the sweet red lips that speak to me so coldly now!”
They stood looking at each other in momentary silence, with hungry eyes and hearts that yearned to each other across the gulf they might not bridge—the swift-running stream of a cousin’s blood.
And yet it is possible, that, if they had mutually guessed the passion of each other’s heart, they might have overleaped all barriers and sprung into each other’s arms, so mighty and resistless is the power of love!
But she thought him fickle and resentful; he believed her cold and unforgiving. So that even as they gazed at each other the rushing stream grew wider, forcing them apart.