"Last night," she said, "you told me that I would probably forget you unless I had something unpardonable to forgive you. Isn't this a good opportunity to leave your unpardonable imprint upon my insulted memory?"
"Excellent," he said. "This is my outrageous question: are you engaged to be married?"
For a full minute she remained silent in her intense displeasure. After the first swift glance of surprise her gray eyes had dropped, and she sat on the gilded arm of the sofa, studying the floor covering—an ancient Saraband rug, with the inevitable and monotonous river-loop symbol covering its old-rose ground in uninteresting repetition. After a while she lifted her head and met his gaze, quietly.
"I am trying to believe that you did not mean to be offensive," she said. "And now that I have a shadow of a reason to pardon you, I shall probably do so, ultimately."
"But you won't answer me?" he said, reddening.
"Of course not. Are we on any such footing of intimacy—even of friendship, Mr. Quarren?"
"No. But you are going away—and my reason for speaking—" He checked himself; his reasons were impossible; there was no extenuation to be found in them, no adequate explanation for them, or for his attitude toward this young girl which had crystallised over night—over a sleepless, thrilling night—dazzling him with its wonder and its truth and its purity in the clean rays of the morning sun.
She watched his expression as it changed, troubled, uncertain how to regard him, now.
"It isn't very much like you, to ask me such a question," she said.
"Before I met you, you thought me one kind of a man; after I met you, you thought me another. Have I turned out to be a third kind?"