“Is that what you have been thinking about?” she asked, innocently astonished.
“Yes. Why not? I never for one instant supposed—”
“But, Mr. Siward, why should you have concerned yourself with supposing anything? Why indulge in any speculation of that sort about me?”
“I don't know, but I didn't,” he said.
“Of course you didn't; you'd known me for about three hours—there on the cliff—”
“But—Quarrier—!”
Over his youthful face a sullen shadow had fallen—flickering, not yet settled. He would not for anything on earth have talked freely to the woman destined to be Quarrier's wife. He had talked too much anyway. Something in her, something about her had loosened his tongue. He had made a plain ass of himself—that was all,—a garrulous ass. And truly it seemed that the girl beside him, even in the starlight, could follow and divine what he had scarcely expressed to himself; or her instincts had taken a shorter cut to forestall his own conclusion.
“Don't think the things you are thinking!” she said in a fierce little voice, leaning toward him.
“What do you mean?” he asked, taken aback.
“You know! Don't! It is unfair—it is—is faithless—to me. I am your friend; why not? Does it make any difference to you whom I marry? Cannot two people remain in accord anyway? Their friendship concerns each other and—nobody else!” She was letting herself go now; she was conscious of it, conscious that impulse and emotion were the currents unloosed and hurrying her onward. And with it all came exhilaration, a faint intoxication, a delicate delight in daring to let go all and trust to impulse and emotions.