“You didn’t send for me,” he said. “I came of my own accord. Last night you didn’t send for me either, but all through the night I sat outside your house. This morning I am here because this is where I last saw you. And I find you. It’s a sign! I thought my heart led me here, but I think now it was the gods! They are on my side. They fight for me. Why do you try to fight against the gods?”
His voice was very low, very tender. He bent forward, and the girl, still avoiding his eyes, sank back upon the bench, and Roddy, seating himself, leaned over her.
“Remember!” he whispered, “though the mills of the gods grind slow, they grind exceeding fine. The day is coming when you will never have to send for me again. You cannot escape it, or me. I am sorry—but I have come into your life—to stay!”
The girl breathed quickly, and, as though casting off the spell of his voice and the feeling it carried with it, suddenly threw out her hands and, turning quickly, faced him.
“I must tell you what makes it so hard,” she said, “why I must not listen to you. It is this. I must not think of myself. I must not think of you, except—” She paused, and then added, slowly and defiantly—“as the one person who can save my father! Do you understand? Do I make it plain? I am making use of you. I have led you on. I have kept you near me, for his sake. I am sacrificing you—for him!” Her voice was trembling, miserable. With her clenched fist she beat upon her knee. “I had to tell you,” she murmured, “I had to tell you! I had to remember,” she protested fiercely, “that I am nothing, that I have no life of my own. Until he is free I do not exist. I am not a girl to love, or to listen to love. I can be only the daughter of the dear, great soul who, without you, may die. And all you can be to me is the man who can save him!” She raised her eyes, unhappily, appealingly. “Even if you despised me,” she whispered, “I had to tell you.”
Roddy’s eyes were as miserable as her own. He reached out his arms to her, as though he would shelter her from herself and from the whole world.
“But, my dear one, my wonderful one,” he cried, “can’t you see that’s only morbid, only wicked? You led me on?” he cried. He laughed jubilantly, happily. “Did I need leading? Didn’t I love you from the first moment you rode toward me out of the sunrise, bringing the day with you? How could I help but love you? You’ve done nothing to make me love you; you’ve only been the most glorious, the most beautiful woman——”
At a sign from the girl he stopped obediently.
“Can’t I love you,” he demanded, “and work for your father the more, because I love you?”
The girl sat suddenly erect and clasped her hands. Her shoulders moved slightly, as though with sudden cold.