“Yes, I read it. We all read it.”
“I guessed that much. Well, I said those things, just as I was quoted as saying them, but I did not mean all that I was credited with meaning. I want you to believe, Jane, that when I admitted my preference for gray eyes and—and all that, I was thinking of one gray-eyed girl in particular. Can you believe that?”
“Oh, I did from the very first; that is, I did as soon as Aunt Judith—”
“Never mind about Aunt Judith,” interrupted Decatur, firmly. “We will get to her in time. We are talking now about that interview. You must admit, Jane, that there are many gray-eyed girls in the country; I don't know just how many, thank Heaven, but there are a lot of them. And most of them seem not only to have read that interview, but to have made a personal application of my remarks. Have you any idea what that means to me?”
“Then you think that they are all in—”
“No, no! I don't imagine there's a single one that cares a bone button for me. But each and every one of them thinks that I am in love with her, or willing to be. If she doesn't think so, her friends do. They expect me to propose on sight, simply because of what I have said about gray eyes. You doubt that? Let me tell you what occurred just before I left town: A person whom I had counted as a friend got together a whole houseful of gray-eyed girls, and then sent for me to come and make my choice. That is what drove me from the city. That is why I came to Ocean Park in June.”
“But the one particular gray-eyed girl that you mentioned? How was it that you happened to—”
“It was sheer good fortune, Jane, that I found you here.”
Decatur had slipped a tentative arm along the seat-back. He was leaning towards Jane, regarding her with melancholy tenderness.
“That you found me?” she said, wonderingly. “Oh, you mean that it was fortunate you found us here?”