“No; it would have been the same. I’m glad you spoke now before—before—— Oh, it is better, isn’t it, to have the—the mistake corrected now?”
“I suppose so,” he answered without conviction. “Well——”
He broke off and sat staring across the fields, the smile still on his face, and for a long minute there was silence between them. Margaret observed him with an indefinable expression in her dark eyes; there was regret there, and tenderness, and wonder.
“I wish——” she began.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing.” And then, after another little pause, “But maybe you’d like to know it. I wish—I cared for you.”
“You wish that?” he cried with a sudden note of hope in his voice. “Then—then——!”
“No, no, no! Don’t misunderstand me, please! I do wish that; yes. I would rather please you than give you pain. If I did care for you I should be glad—and proud to tell you so—and proud of your—love. But I don’t—not in the way you want me to.”
“It is only pity,” he said sadly.
“Yes.... I don’t know....”