“Middling.”
“I am—sometimes. Then something like to-day comes, and it puts me clear down in the heart. I have to keep up laughing and being gay when I’m all torn to pieces. I feel that I oughtn’t to keep him in suspense this way. He’s young, he’s fairly rich—if that counted. When he’s here, I often think I do—love him. When he writes, I know I don’t.” 221
“Poor little girl!” said Bert, catching sympathetically at the half-sob in her voice.
“Thank you,” answered Kate on an indrawn breath. And then, “What would you do? I’m only a girl after all, am I not? Here I’m leaning on you, asking for advice.”
Bertram did not answer for a time. Then:
“Sure you don’t love him?”
“Not—not entirely. I might if he made me.”
Bertram was looking straight down on her. His mouth was pursed up.
“Suppose he made you—and after you’d married him you got to feeling again as you do now. That wouldn’t be square to him, would it?”
“I—perhaps not. But oh, it would hurt him so!”