To this she made no reply, but moved away from where she had been standing to listen to him, and returned to her chair. They were on the loggia, and this sudden movement left him at one end, while she returned to the other. He stood for a time following her with his eyes; then, having watched the angry abandon with which she threw herself into her seat, turning her head away, he came a little closer with a certain sternness in his aspect.
“Miss Waring,” he said, “notwithstanding the distance between us, you have allowed me to be your—companion for some time past.”
“Yes,” she said. “What then? There was no one else, either for me or for you.”
“That, then, was the sole reason?”
“Captain Gaunt,” she cried, “what is the use of all this? We were thrown in each other’s way. I meant nothing more; if you did, it was your own fault. You could not surely expect that I should marry you and go to India with you? It is absurd—it is ridiculous,” she cried, with a hot blush, throwing back her head. He saw with suddenly quickened perceptions that the suggestion filled her with contempt and shame. And the young man’s veins tingled as if fire was in them; the rage of love despised shook his very soul.
“And why?” he cried—“and why?” his voice tremulous with passion. “What is ridiculous in that? It may be ridiculous that I should have believed in a girl like you. I may have been a vain weak fool to do it, not to know that I was only a plaything for your amusement; but it never could be ridiculous to think that a woman might love and marry an honourable man.”
He paused several times to command his voice, and she listened impatient, not looking at him, clasping and unclasping her hands.
“It would be ridiculous in me,” she cried. “You don’t know me, or you never would have dreamt—— Captain Gaunt, this had better end. It is of no use lashing yourself to fury, or me either. Think the worst of me you can; it will be all the better for you—it will make you hate me. Yes, I have been amusing myself; and so, I supposed, were you too.”
“No,” he said, “you could not think that.”
She turned round and gave him one look, then averted her eyes again, and said no more.