“Mr. Libby!”
“Oh, I must speak now! You were always thinking, because you had studied a man’s profession, that no one would think of you as a woman, as if that could make any difference to a man that had the soul of a man in him!”
“No, no!” she protested. “I didn’t think that. I always expected to be considered as a woman.”
“But not as a woman to fall in love with. I understood. And that somehow made you all the dearer to me. If you had been a girl like other girls, I shouldn’t have cared for you.”
“Oh!”
“I didn’t mean to speak to you to-day. But sometime I did mean to speak; because, whatever I was, I loved you; and I thought you didn’t dislike me.”
“I did like you,” she murmured, “very much. And I respected you. But you can’t say that I ever gave you any hope in this—this—way.” She almost asked him if she had.
“No,—not purposely. And if you did, it’s over now. You have rejected me. I understand that. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t. And I can hold my tongue.” He did not turn, but looked steadily past her at the boat’s head.
An emotion stirred in her breast which took the form of a reproach. “Was it fair, then, to say this when neither of us could escape afterwards?”
“I didn’t mean to speak,” he said, without looking up, “and I never meant to place you where you couldn’t escape.”