"Why?"
"Because—I am in love!"
"What?"
"With a girl who—hates me."
"Oh," she said faintly. Then the surprise in her eyes faded vaguely into wistfulness, and into something almost tender as she gazed at his bowed head.
"Any girl," she said, scarcely knowing what she was saying, "who could not love such a man as you is an absolutely negligible quantity."
His hands fell from his face and he sat up.
"Could you?"
"What?" she said, not understanding.
"Could you do what—what I—mentioned just now?"