"I don't!" he caught her up quickly. "I only wish to Heaven I did. You've never given the slightest sign—I know myself ... but not you."
He saw her face clear at his words. She threw him a furtive, sidelong glance and the long lashes trembled and fell, casting a shadow on her cheek.
Then she raised her head again with a faintly malicious smile.
"I don't understand yet, Peter. I always thought we were just friends! Don't you remember when you returned home from abroad, only this Summer—you said you wanted me to feel that you were ... well—an 'elder brother.'" (McTaggart winced at the memory. It was true: those were his words.) "And now—you're going back on that. Isn't it a pity, rather—to spoil it all by this new idea?"
"It's not a new idea to me!" his voice was hot, faintly indignant. "I've loved you for ages past..." She turned on him with a sudden gesture that checked the rest of his ardent speech.
"Then why do you tell me this to-night—for the first time? Why not before?" She was on her feet facing him, her face defiant, her eyes ablaze.
"I know. You needn't answer me. It's because of Stephen and Mother—there! You think that I shall have a rotten life at home—and you're sorry—that's all! If you had cared all this time there was nothing to stop your telling me. And I don't choose," she stamped her foot, carried away by a gust of pride, "to be married from a sense of pity! I can make my own life for myself. I've got Roddy ... and heaps of friends. I daresay you think it's very kind..."
But McTaggart was at the end of his patience. "How dare you say that to me?" He caught her firmly by the shoulders, his blue eyes full of anger. "Look at me!" he compelled her gaze. "Now—don't you know that I'm in earnest?"
He could feel her, rigid, under his touch, but the very warmth of her young body, through the thin summer dress she wore, fired his blood and he went on, with an ominous break in his voice.
"I see what it is!—I've left it too late. I ought to have spoken weeks ago! But I did it, Jill—for your sake..."