"Tell me," he cried suddenly, a deep note in his voice. "Have you anything to say to me? Anything about our talk the other night?"
Monica kept her eyes averted. She was summoning all her courage, that she might the more successfully bruise and beat down her own love for this man.
She shook her head without daring to face him. She knew, she felt the heat of passion shining in his gray eyes.
"It—it—can't be," she said, stumbling fatally.
She waited, hardly knowing what to expect. As the man remained silent the beatings of her heart seemed to have suddenly become so loud that she thought he must surely hear them; and hearing them, would understand the cowardice she was laboring under.
Had she dared to look at him she must have seen the marked change her refusal had brought about. The same passionate fire was in his eyes, there was the same flush upon his cheeks. But there was an added something that was quite different from these things, something which she might have recognized, for she had witnessed it many times before in her intercourse with him. It was the fighting spirit of the man slowly rising, the light of battle gathering.
He smiled, and his smile was strangely tender in a man of his known character.
"Is that all?" he asked at last. "Is that your—final word?"
"Yes," she almost gasped, and desperately faced him.
Then she abruptly rose from her seat and moved toward the window. She had seen more in his eyes than she could face, and still remain true to her decision.