“You have not believed me, Ferdinand, when I have told you over and over again that what you ask is absolutely impossible.” Inez spoke kindly but very firmly. “I truly wish it might be otherwise, but it is kinder that I make you understand it now instead of having this unhappiness for us both continue indefinitely. I know you mean every word, but I say to you now finally and irrevocably—it can never be.”
De Peyster looked into her face searchingly. “You never said it like that before, Inez.”
“Yes, I have—not once, but many times, and in almost the same words.”
“But it is not the words that count, Inez. I don’t care how many times you say it in the way you always have said it before. I expected to hear it again. But this tone, Inez, this manner is quite different; and for the first time I have a feeling that perhaps you do mean it after all.”
“I do mean it, and I have meant it every time I have said it.”
Inez was relentless, but she felt that this was the one time when matters could be finally settled, and the carriage had already begun the climb to Settignano.
De Peyster still gazed at her with uncertainty. Then a sudden light came to him and showed in his face, mingling with the evident pain which the thought brought him.
“I have it,” he said, bending toward her to watch her expression more intently; “I have it. You are in love with some one else!”
Inez felt her face burn with the suddenness of the accusation. She hesitated, and in that moment’s hesitation De Peyster had his answer. Still he was not satisfied. He must hear the words spoken.
“You told me last time that there was no one else,” he said, reproachfully, “and I know you spoke the truth. Now there must be some one, and if there is I am entitled to know it. So long as my love for you cannot harm you, no power on earth can take it away from me; but if there is another who has a better right than I, that is a different matter. Tell me, Inez—I insist—do you love some one else?”