Part 17 (1/2)
”Then not as a friend?”
”Why, certainly not, Mr. Merwyn. You know that you are not my friend. What does the word mean?”
”Well,” said he, flus.h.i.+ng, ”what does it mean?”
”Nothing more to me than to any other sincere person. One uses downright sincerity with a friend, and would rather harm himself than that friend.”
”Why is not this my att.i.tude towards you?”
”You, naturally, should know better than I.”
”Indeed, Miss Vosburgh, you little know the admiration you have excited,” he said, gallantly.
An inscrutable smile was her only response.
”That, however, has become like the air you breathe, no doubt.”
”Not at all. I prize admiration. What woman does not? But there are as many kinds of admiration as there are donors.”
”Am I to infer that mine is of a valueless nature?”
”Ask yourself, Mr. Merwyn, just what it is worth.”
”It is greater than I have ever bestowed upon any one else,” he said, hastily; for this tilt was disturbing his self-possession.
Again she smiled, and her thought was, ”Except yourself.”
He, thinking her smile incredulous, resumed: ”You doubt this?”
”I cannot help thinking that you are mistaken.”
”How can I a.s.sure you that I am not?”
”I do not know. Why is it essential that I should be so a.s.sured?”
He felt that he was being worsted, and feared that she had detected the absence of unselfish good-will and honest purpose toward her. He was angry with himself and her because of the dilemma in which he was placed. Yet what could he say to the serene, smiling girl before him, whose unflinching blue eyes looked into his with a keenness of insight that troubled him? His one thought now was to achieve a retreat in which he could maintain the semblance of dignity and good breeding.
With a light and deferential laugh he said: ”I am taught, unmistakably, Miss Vosburgh, that my regard, whatever it may be, is of little consequence to you, and that it would be folly for me to try to prove a thing that would not interest you if demonstrated. I feel, however, that one question is due to us both,--Is my society a disagreeable intrusion?”
”If it had been, Mr. Merwyn, you would have been aware of the fact before this. I have enjoyed your conversation this morning.”
”I hope, then, that in the future I can make a more favorable impression, and that in time you will give me your hand.”
Her blue eyes never left his face as he spoke, and they grew dark with a meaning that perplexed and troubled him. She merely bowed gravely and turned away.
Never had his complacency been so disturbed. He walked homeward with steps that grew more and more rapid, keeping pace with his swift, perturbed thoughts. As he approached his residence he yielded to an impulse; leaped a wall, and struck out for the mountains.