She understood him of course. The touch of their eyes had warmed her even before he began. But "Stand how?" she repeated feebly.
"With you. I love you! We both know that. What about you? Could you care for me? Do you?"
Her shy, deep eyes met his fairly. "I don't know. Sometimes I think I do, and then sometimes I think I don't—that way."
The touch of affection that made his face occasionally tender as a woman's, lit his warm smile.
"Couldn't you make that first sometimes always, don't you reckon, Phyllis?"
"Ah! If I knew! But I don't—truly, I don't. I—I want to care," she confessed, with divine shyness.
"That's good listening. Couldn't you go ahead on those times you do, honey?"
"No!" She drew back from his advance. "No—give me time. I'm—I'm not sure—I'm not at all sure. I can't explain, but——"
"Can't decide between me and another man?" he suggested, by way of a joke, to lighten her objection.
Then, in a flash, he knew that by accident he had hit the truth. The startled look of doubt in her eyes told him. Perhaps she had not known it herself before, but his words had clarified her mind. There was another man in the running—one not to be thrust aside easily.