“I’ve told you,” she answered.
“And—that last day, dear? It was the same? You didn’t care then either?”
“Oh, what does it matter what happened afterwards?” she cried agitatedly. “It was what I had done, don’t you see? It was the meanness, the—the shamefulness of it!”
“Well, but this ‘afterward’? What of that?”
“Nothing,” she answered firmly.
Silence fell for a moment. They looked across at each other steadily, she meeting his smile defiantly. Then the color crept up from throat to cheeks and her eyes dropped.
“Dear,” he said gently, “I don’t care what happened before that ‘afterward.’ I loved you from the first moment, but I’m not going to resent it if it took you longer to discover my irresistible charms. Why, hang it all, I’m proud you should have thought me worth marrying even for my money! But ‘afterward,’ dear? When I kissed you? You can’t make me believe there was no love then, Cicely. And it is still ‘afterward,’ and it always will be! Dear, Arcadia is waiting for you. The lotus pool is lonely without you. And so am I, Cicely, Cicely dear!”
“Oh, I knew you would try to forgive me,” she cried miserably. “That is why I—didn’t want you to come. Because after awhile you would remember and——”
“Cicely!”