“You are a million times more beautiful, more adorable.” He asked her when she had begun to think of him—the eternal, childlike question. She met his lover's gaze steadily. Frankness was her great virtue.
“It seems now that I have cared for you since the first day. You soon came into my life, but I did n't know how much you represented. Then I heard you speaking to Connie. That mattered a great deal. When that man shot you, I knew that I loved you. I thought you were dead. I rushed down the slope and propped you up against my knees—and I thought I should go mad with agony.”
“I never heard of that,” said Jimmie in a low voice.
He became suddenly thoughtful, rose to his feet and regarded her with a changed expression, like that of a man awakened from a dream.
“What is going to be the end of this?” he asked.
Norma, for once unperceptive and replying to a small preoccupation of her own, flushed to her hair.
“I know Connie well enough to look her up and ask her for hospitality.”
“I wasn't thinking of that,” said Jimmie. “We have been like children and had our hour of joy, without thinking of anything else. Now we must be grown-up people. After what has passed between us, I could only ask you to be my wife.”
“I came here for you to ask me,” she said.
“I have no right to do so, dear. I bear a dishonoured name. The wonder and wild desire of you made me forget.”