So while she lay ill he began to read his own heart in dismay, and entered on a struggle with the passion that had stolen on him unawares, bursting into full flower that tragic day when she had gone down so swiftly through the broken ice into the black, flowing river to what might so quickly have been cruel death.
She filled his whole heart and thoughts, and he stood aghast at his own weakness and folly.
Time was, but a little while ago, that he had frankly despised and avoided her in his detestation of her heartlessness.
But the few unavoidable meetings with her at the studio of Florian Gay had removed the keen edge of his dislike. No one could be in Viola’s company and not yield to the magnetic charm of her presence. After all, she seemed but a simple, unaffected girl, perhaps not realizing the harm she did by her gayety and beauty.
So love had come to him against his will, and he chafed bitterly under it, feeling that the light coquette was not worthy the sacrifice of a true man’s heart.
He determined to conquer his ill-starred passion as speedily as possible, and never let Viola have the triumph of knowing she had ever touched his heart.
While she was ill he did not succeed very well in his desire, because pity and sympathy softened his feelings.
Then when she began to convalesce, it made him so glad he could not resist a kind little note and some flowers. It seemed an almost necessary courtesy, and he intended to stop right there, and never see her again if he could avoid it.
But Viola sent him a sweet little perfumed note in reply, at the end of which she said:
“I am almost well again, and indeed you must not blame yourself for having left me alone on the ice that day, because I sent you, you know, to help poor Minnie Hyer. I pitied her so much, poor thing! tumbling about on the ice till she must have been black and blue with bruises. Then, of course, you never thought of my skating out so far alone—neither did I, indeed—but I’ll tell you why I did it when I see you again.”