Part 3 (1/2)
For a moment she looked away from the whim which they were slowly nearing, and her eyes met his.
”I have,” she admitted frankly; ”I have had a particularly poor experience of them. Yet I am sorry to find you so different from the rest; I can't tell you how sorry I am to find you true to me.”
”Sorry?” he said tenderly; for her voice was full of pain, and he could not bear that. ”Why should you be sorry, dear?”
”Why--because I never dreamt of being true to you.”
For some reason her face flamed as he watched it. There was a pause.
Then he said:
”You are not engaged; are you in love?”
”Very far from it.”
”Then why mind? If there is no one else you care for you shall care for me yet. I'll make you. I'll wait for you. You don't know me! I won't give you up until you are some other fellow's wife.”
His stern eyes, the way his mouth shut on the words, and the manly determination of the words themselves gave the girl a thrill of pleasure and of pride; but also a pang; for at that moment she felt the wish to love him alongside the inability, and all at once she was as sorry for herself as for him.
”What should you mind?” repeated Swift.
”I can't tell you, but you can guess what I have been.”
”A flirt?” He laughed aloud. ”Darling, I don't care two figs for your flirtations! I wanted you to enjoy yourself. What does it matter how you've enjoyed yourself, so long as you haven't absolutely been getting engaged or falling in love?”
Her chin drooped into her loose white blouse. ”I did fall in love,” she said slowly--”at any rate I thought so; and I very nearly got engaged.”
Swift had never seen so much color in her face.
Presently he said, ”What happened?” but immediately added, ”I beg your pardon; of course I have no business to ask.” His tone was more stiff than strained.
”You _have_ business,” she answered eagerly, fearful of making him less than friend. ”I wouldn't mind telling you the whole thing, except the man's name. And yet,” she added rather wistfully, ”I suppose you're the only friend I have that doesn't know! It's hard lines to have to tell you.”
”Then I don't want to know anything at all about it,” exclaimed Swift impulsively. ”I would rather you didn't tell me a word, if you don't mind. I am only too thankful to think you got out of it, whatever it was.”
”I didn't get out of it.”
”You don't--mean--that the man did?”
Swift was aghast.
”I do.”
He did not speak, but she heard him breathing. Stealing a look at him, her eyes fell first upon the clenched fist lying on his knee.
She made haste to defend the man.
”It wasn't all his fault; of that I feel sure. If you knew who he was you wouldn't blame him anymore than I do. He was quite a boy, too; I don't suppose he was a free agent. In any case it is all quite, quite over.”
”Is it? He was from England--that's why you hate the home people so!”