"Then I am a rebel, too," said Ray, chokingly, sitting down again, and mechanically stooping to pick up the burning string,—"a rebel to him!"
"You won't be a rebel to him, if you'll listen to reason,—his reason."
"He's got no reason. It's only because he was there."
"Now, Raymond Lamar! if you talk so, you sha'n't read the letter!"
"I don't want to read it."
"Have you left off loving Beltran, because he differs from you?"
"Left off loving Beltran!"
Vivia waited a moment, leaning on the back of his chair, and then Ray, bending, covered his face with his hands, and the large tears oozed from between his brown fingers.
Little Jane, whipping the frothy snow of her eggs, went on whipping all the harder for fear Ray should know she saw him. And Vivia, with one hand upon his head, took away the brown fingers, that her own cool, fragrant palm might press upon his burning lids. Such sudden tears belong to such tropical natures. For there was no anger or sullenness in Ray's grief; he was just and simply sorry.
"He must have forgotten me," said Ray, after a sober while.