“Well,” he said, “I'm glad you told me that I was the first. I should have thought you'd had a good deal of experience in flirtation.”
“You wouldn't have thought so if you hadn't been a great flirt yourself,” she answered, audaciously. “Perhaps I have been engaged before!”
Their talk was for the most part frivolous, and their thoughts ephemeral; but again they were, with her at least, suddenly and deeply serious. Till then all things seemed to have been held in arrest, and impressions, ideas, feelings, fears, desires, released themselves simultaneously, and sought expression with a rush that defied coherence. “Oh, why do we try to talk?” she asked, at last. “The more we say, the more we leave unsaid. Let us keep still awhile!” But she could not. “Bartley! When did you first think you cared about me?”
“I don't know,” said Bartley, “I guess it must have been the first time I saw you.”
“Yes, that is when I first knew that I cared for you. But it seems to me that I must have always cared for you, and that I only found it out when I saw you going by the house that day.” She mused a little time before she asked again, “Bartley!”
“Well?”
“Did you ever use to be afraid—Or, no! Wait! I'll tell you first, and then I'll ask you. I'm not ashamed of it now, though once I thought I couldn't bear to have any one find it out. I used to be awfully afraid you didn't care for me! I would try to make out, from things you did and said, whether you did or not; but I never could be certain. I believe I used to find the most comfort in discouraging myself. I used to say to myself, 'Why, of course he doesn't! How can he? He's been everywhere, and he's seen so many girls. He corresponds with lots of them. Altogether likely he's engaged to some of the young ladies he's met in Boston; and he just goes with me here for a blind.' And then when you would praise me, sometimes, I would just say, 'Oh, he's complimented plenty of girls. I know he's thinking this instant of the young lady he's engaged to in Boston.' And it would almost kill me; and when you did some little thing to show that you liked me, I would think, 'He doesn't like me! He hates, he despises me. He does, he does, he does!' And I would go on that way, with my teeth shut, and my breath held, I don't know how long.” Bartley broke out into a broad laugh at this image of desperation, but she added, tenderly, “I hope I never made you suffer in that way?”
“What way?” he asked.
“That's what I wanted you to tell me. Did you ever—did you use to be afraid sometimes that I—that you—did you put off telling me that you cared for me so long because you thought, you dreaded—Oh, I don't see what I can ever do to make it up to you if you did! Were you afraid I didn't care for you?”
“No!” shouted Bartley. She had risen and stood before him in the fervor of her entreaty, and he seized her arms, pinioning them to her side, and holding her helpless, while he laughed, and laughed again. “I knew you were dead in love with me from the first moment.”