"What nonsense! You know that's not true, Robert. He's not here half as much as you are. But if he were, what of it? He's very good-looking, and Uncle Bob and I both like him, and, indeed, he's much more entertaining than you, Robert!"
Robert walked quickly across the room and back, then seized both her slim brown wrists in a grip whose severity she rather liked. She felt that something disturbing was at hand, however, and she braced her wits to manage it.
"Barbara,—my lady,—my lady,—I love you!" he said, very quietly.
"Of course, Robert! I know that," she answered, with composure, smiling up at him, and making no effort to free her wrists. Yet in some way her smile checked him, as he was about to crush her in his arms. His breast ached fiercely so to crush her, yet it was impossible.
"With all my heart and soul, my lady," he went on, his voice on the dead level of intense emotion, "with every drop of blood in my body, I love you, I have loved you, ever since the old child days in Second Westings!"
"That is very dear of you, Robert," she responded, her voice and eyes showing nothing but frank pleasure at his words. "But, of course, I have always known that," which was not quite true, though it seemed true to her at the moment.
He could not tell what there was in this answer to hold him back, or if it was the frankness of her eyes that daunted him, but he began to feel that, so far from clasping her to his heart and satisfying his lips upon her eyes, her hair, her mouth, he had no right even to be holding her wrists as he was. He flung them from him, drew back a step, and searched her face with a desperate look.
"And you—you do not love me at all!"
Barbara looked thoughtful, regretful.
"No, Robert, I don't love you—not in the way you mean. I'm not in love with you, you know. But I do care a lot for you, more than for almost any one else!"