"It is impossible!" he says, roughly. "Whatever else you are, you are no fool; and a woman would have had to be blinder than any mole not to see whither I—yes, and you, too—have been tending! If you meant to be surprised all along when it came to this, why did you make yourself common talk for the neighborhood with me? Why did you press me, with such unconventional eagerness to visit you? Why did you reproach me if I missed one day?"
"Why did I?" cry I, eagerly. "Because—"
Then I stop suddenly. How, even to clear myself, can I tell him my real reason?
"And now," he continues, with deepening excitement, "now that you reap your own sowing, you are surprised—miserably surprised!"
"I am!" cry I, incoherently. "You may not believe me, but it is true—as true as that God is above us, and that I never, never was tired of Roger!"
I stop, choked with sobs.
"Yes," he says, sardonically, "about as true. But, be that as it may, you must at least be good enough to excuse me from expressing joy at his return, seeing that he fills the place which I am fool enough to covet, and which, but for him, might—yes, say what you please, deny it as much as you like—would have been mine!"
"It never would!" cry I, passionately. "If you had been the last man in the world—if we had been left together on a desert island—I never should have liked you, never! I never would have seen more of you than I could help! There is no one whose society I grow so soon tired of. I have said so over and over again to the boys."
"Have you?"
"What good reason can you give me for preferring you to him?" I ask, my voice trembling and quivering with a passionate indignation; "I am here, ready to listen to you if you can! How are you such a desirable substitute for him? Are you nobler? cleverer? handsomer? unselfisher?—if you are" (laughing bitterly), "you keep it mighty well hid."