“Sweetheart, tell me you forgive me,” Phil whispered passionately, and unable to endure that penetrating look; “remember my love for you made me sin.”
Mollie smiled slightly, and the color began to creep toward her temples again, for what woman can listen unmoved to such a confession of love for her?—but she still studied his face, and appeared to be thinking deeply.
“You do forgive—you do love me, Mollie!” Phil burst forth eagerly, as he noted the smile and blush.
He stretched forth his arms, and would have gathered her into them, but she gently repulsed him and moved a little away from him.
“Yes, Phil, I forgive you as far as any wrong against me is concerned; at the same time, I must say that I think you have been very unfair to Mr. Faxon.”
Phil ground his heels into the carpet at this reference to Clifford, while he secretly wished that they had been planted upon his enemy’s handsome face.
“As for the other matter,” Mollie continued reflectively, “I—I cannot say just now whether I love you or not.”
“Mollie!”
“Nay, do not be so impatient, Phil,” she interposed with smiling reproof, her color deepening again; “but wait and let me be perfectly frank with you. When I returned I confess I looked forward very eagerly to meeting you; our earthly friendship and our correspondence have, of course, governed my thought of you during my absence, and I have often found myself wondering just how we would resume our—acquaintance. You have been very nice to me, Phil, during my visit. I find you”—flashing him an arch look—“very attractive personally, delightfully entertaining, and well versed in all those little attentions and observances of etiquette that usually make men attractive to women; but—I wish you had not spoken just yet, for I am not prepared to define my own feelings toward you. I want to know you—the real you, your inner self, a little better before I can be sure where I stand, or make you any promises. And, Phil, you must never attempt to deceive me again,” she interposed, a shadow falling over her face; “I—I cannot bear anything of the kind, and nothing would sooner establish an impassable barrier between us.”