“Look at me, then.”
She raised her eyes to his. Given the chance he so seldom got from her, he gazed eagerly down into their depths, revealed to him in the half light, half shadow, of the strange place they were in. She met the look steadily at first, then falteringly. At length the lashes fell.
In silence he waited, motionless. She tried to laugh lightly. “You’re so tragic,” she murmured.
There was no answer.
“We should never be happy together,” she began, slowly. “You’ve a will like iron—I’ve felt it for three years. Mine is—I don’t know what mine is—but it’s not used to being denied. We should quarrel over everything, even when I knew, as I did to-day, that you were right. I—don’t know how to tell you—but—I——”
She hesitated. He made no answer, no plea, simply stood, breathing deep but steadily, and steadily watching her.
“You’re such a good friend,” she went on, reluctantly, after a little. She was drooping against the door of the box stall like a flower which needs support, but he did not offer to help her. “Such a good friend I don’t want to lose you—but I know by the way you speak that I’m going to lose you if—I——”
She raised her eyes little by little till they had reached his shoulders, broad and firm and motionless.
“Good-by, Mr. Jarvis,” she said, very low, and in a voice which trembled a little. “But please don’t mind very much. I’m not—worth it. I——”
She lifted her eyes once more from his shoulder to his face, to find the same look, intensified, meeting her with its steady fire. She paled slowly, dropped her eyes and turned as if to go, when a great breath, like a sob, shook her. She stood for an instant, faltering, then turned again and took one uncertain step toward him.