"No, oh, no!" she answered quickly, before she thought.
"Or in love?" he asked seriously.
Haines had stood up and was now leaning intently over the table. He realized the difference between the feeling he had had for Carolina and the tender emotion that thrilled him as he thought of the sweet girl before him. This time he knew he was not mistaken. He knew that he truly loved Hope Langdon.
"Or in love?" he asked again, anxious at her silence.
Hope looked at him slowly. A faint blush illumined her face.
"Oh, don't let's talk about me," she exclaimed.
"But I want to talk about you," he cried. "I don't want to talk about anything else. I must talk about you, and I'm going to talk whether you want to hear or not. You've believed in me when nobody else believed. You've fought for me when everybody else was fighting against me. You've shown that you think I am honest and worthy of a woman's faith. You fought your own family for me. Nobody has ever done for me what you have, and—and—"
He faltered, full of what he was about to say.
"And you're grateful," she ended.
He looked her squarely in the eyes as though to fathom her thoughts.
Then he reached toward the girl and seized both her hands.