"Can you tell me that you were not aware that I loved you?"
"Well, I thought--the fact is, I thought that you were amusing yourself--in West End fashion."
"Coquette!"
"Mr. Maitland!" she cried vehemently, "how dare you? There is proof, if any were needed, that I am right. You would not have dared to say that to any of your town acquaintances. I am no coquette. If I have given you pain, I am very sorry. And--I beg that we may part friends."
She had begun fiercely, with all her old spirit. He turned away, and she ended with a sudden, anxious, pitiful lameness, that yet, so angry and dull of understanding was he, taught him nothing.
"Friends!" he cried impatiently. "I told you that it was impossible. Oh, Joan, think again! Have I been too hasty? Have I given you no time to weigh it? Have I just offended you in some little thing? Then let me come to you again in three months, after I have been back among my old friends?"
"No, don't do that, Mr. Maitland. It will be of no use and will but give us pain."
"And yet I will come," he replied firmly, endeavoring by the very eager longing of his own gaze to draw from her fair, downcast face some sign of hope. "I will come, if you forbid me a hundred times. And if you have been playing with me--true, I am in no mood for soft words now--it shall be your punishment to say me nay, again. I shall be here, Joan, to ask you in three months from to-day."
"I cannot prevent you," she said. "Believe me, I shall only have the same answer for you."
"I shall come," he said doggedly, and looked at her with eyes reluctant to quit her drooping lashes lest they should miss some glance bidding his heart take courage. But none came, only the color fluttered uncertainly in her face. So he slowly turned away from her at last and walked across the garden, and out of sight by the gate into the road. He saw nothing of the long, dusty track, and straggling hedges bathed in the last glows of sunset. Those big gray eyes, so frank and true, came again and again between him and the prospect, and blinded his own with a hot mist of sorrow and anger. Ah, Blore, thou wast mightily avenged!