Babbie should have been grateful to his denseness, but it merely set her mind at rest.
"Say anything against me you choose," she told him. "Say it as brutally as you like, for I won't listen."
She stopped to hear his response to that, and she looked so cold that it almost froze on Gavin's lips.
"I had no right," he said dolefully, "to speak to you as I did."
"You had not," answered the proud Egyptian. She was looking away from him to show that his repentance was not even interesting to her. However, she had forgotten already not to listen....
She was very near him, and the tears had not yet dried on her eyes. They were laughing eyes, eyes in distress, imploring eyes. Her pale face, smiling, sad, dimpled yet entreating forgiveness, was the one prominent thing in the world to him just then. He wanted to kiss her. He would do it as soon as her eyes rested on his, but she continued without regarding him.
"How mean that sounds! Oh, if I were a man I would wish to be everything that I am not, and nothing that I am. I would scorn to be a liar, I would choose to be open in all things, I would try to fight the world honestly. But I am only a woman, and so--well, that is the kind of man I would like to marry."
"A minister may be all these things," said Gavin breathlessly.
"The man I could love," Babbie went on, not heeding him, almost forgetting that he was there, "must not spend his days in idleness as the men I know do."
"I do not."