There boiled up in the youth's heart a feeling of wrath and indignation against the girl who in sheer wantonness had imperiled her life and had given to him a moment of spasm of apprehension.
Looking full into her glittering brown eyes, he said—
"You have cast at me ill names. I have been to you but clown and fool; I have done nothing to merit such titles; I should never have thrown a thought away on you, but have gone on scraping my shaft, had not you done a silly thing—a silly thing. Acted like a fool, and a fool only!"
"You dare not do what I have done."
"If there be a need I will do it. If I do it for a purpose there is no folly in it. That is folly where there is recklessness for no purpose."
"I had a purpose!"
"A purpose?—what? To call my attention to you, to make me admire your daring, all to no end. Or was it in mere inconsiderate prank? A man is not brave merely because he is so stupid that he does not see the consequences before him. A blind man may walk where I should shrink from treading. And stupidity blinds some eyes that they run into danger and neither see nor care for the danger or for the consequences that will ensue on their rashness."
The girl flushed with anger.
"I am not accustomed to be spoken to thus," she said, and stamped her foot on the pavement of the platform.
"All the better for you that it is spoken at last."