“What's to prevent us—Maude?” I demanded, with a dry throat.
“Nonsense!” she laughed. In proportion as I lost poise she seemed to gain it.
“It's not nonsense,” I faltered. “If we were married.”
At last the fateful words were pronounced—irrevocably. And, instead of qualms, I felt nothing but relief, joy that I had been swept along by the flood of feeling. She did not look at me, but gazed straight ahead of her.
“If I love you, Maude?” I stammered, after a moment.
“But I don't love you,” she replied, steadily.
Never in my life had I been so utterly taken aback.
“Do you mean,” I managed to say, “that after all these months you don't like me a little?”
“'Liking' isn't loving.” She looked me full in the face. “I like you very much.”
“But—” there I stopped, paralyzed by what appeared to me the quintessence of feminine inconsistency and caprice. Yet, as I stared at her, she certainly did not appear capricious. It is not too much to say that I was fairly astounded at this evidence of self-command and decision, of the strength of mind to refuse me. Was it possible that she had felt nothing and I all? I got to my feet.