“And besides?” he queried.
“Nothing,” she replied, “except that I mustn’t take it, really.” “Won’t you take it as a souvenir even if—our agreement, you know.”
“Even if what?” she queried.
“Even if nothing else comes of it. A memento, then—truly—you know.”
He laid hold of her fingers with his cool, vigorous ones. A year before, even six months, Aileen would have released her hand smilingly. Now she hesitated. Why should she be so squeamish with other men when Cowperwood was so unkind to her?
“Tell me something,” Lynde asked, noting the doubt and holding her fingers gently but firmly, “do you care for me at all?”
“I like you, yes. I can’t say that it is anything more than that.”
She flushed, though, in spite of herself.
He merely gazed at her with his hard, burning eyes. The materiality that accompanies romance in so many temperaments awakened in her, and quite put Cowperwood out of her mind for the moment. It was an astonishing and revolutionary experience for her. She quite burned in reply, and Lynde smiled sweetly, encouragingly.
“Why won’t you be friends with me, my sweetheart? I know you’re not happy—I can see that. Neither am I. I have a wreckless, wretched disposition that gets me into all sorts of hell. I need some one to care for me. Why won’t you? You’re just my sort. I feel it. Do you love him so much”—he was referring to Cowperwood—“that you can’t love any one else?”