“No, I’m not. I’m a little fool to tell you this, but how can I stay—why should I stay—when you are gone?”
She was looking down, but after her confession she raised her eyes to his, and he wondered that he had never known how beautiful she was. He could have taken her in his arms, but something, with the power of invisible chains, held him back. In that supreme moment a vision swam before him; a vision of a mountain stream backed by tawny foothills, and a girl as beautiful as even this Phyllis who had wrapped him in her arms... and said, “We must go and forget.” And he had not forgotten....
When he did not respond she drew herself slowly away. “You will hate me,” she said.
“That is impossible,” he corrected, quickly. “I am very sorry if I have let you think more than I intended. I care for you very, very much indeed. I care for you so much that I will not let you think I care for you more. Can you understand that?”
“Yes. You like me, but you love someone else.”
He was disconcerted by her intuition and the terse frankness with which she stated the case.
“I will take you into my confidence, Phyllis, if I may,” he said at length. “I DO like you; I DID love someone else. And that old attachment is still so strong that it would be hardly fair—it would be hardly fair—”
“Why didn’t you marry her?” she demanded.
“Because some one else did.”
“Oh!”