“You are not repugnant at all,” she faltered hoarsely. “You are not repugnant, only—I am indifferent.”
“You mean that you don’t care about me one way or the other.”
She shut her lips tight. Hers was not a nature so passionate as that of most Southerns, but a loving one; feeling with her was not a single simple emotion, but a complicated one of many impulses—of self-diffidences, of deep, strange aspirations that she herself could scarcely understand—a woman’s pride, the delight of companionship and sympathy and of the guidance of a stronger will; a longing for better things. All these things were there. But beside them were thoughts of the man she had vowed she loved, the man who was ruined and who could not for years hope to make her his wife. She looked at the glittering moonlit sea, with the light steadily burning in the far distance at Antibes, but no answer escaped her lips. The silence of night was complete save for the rhythmic swish of the waves at their feet.
At last, after a long pause, her words came again, shudderingly, “Oh, what have you done?”
“By Heaven!” he said, with a vague smile, “I don’t know. I hope no harm.”
“Oh, don’t laugh!” she cried, laughing hysterically herself. “Unless you want me to think you the greatest wretch in the world.”
“I?” he responded. “What do you mean?”
“You know you are fooling me,” she answered reproachfully. “You cannot put your hand on your heart and swear that you actually love me.”
A quick look of displeasure crossed his face, but his back was towards the moon and she did not notice it.
“Yes—yes, I can—I will,” he answered. “You must have known it, Liane. I’ve been abrupt, I know, and I’ve startled you, but if you love me you must attribute that to my loving you so long before I have spoken.”