"It may have been only play to you, and so easily forgotten," he went
on, bitterly. "But that is a dangerous game, very certain to hurt some
one. Miss Naida, your face, your eyes, even your lips almost
continually tell me one thing; your words another. I know not which to
trust. I never meet you except to go away baffled and bewildered."
"You wish to know the truth?"
"Ay, and for ail time! Are you false, or true? Coquette, or woman?
Do you simply play with hearts for idle amusement, or is there some
true purpose ruling your actions?"
She looked directly at him, her hands clasped, her breath almost
sobbing between the parted lips. At first she could not speak. "Oh,
you hurt me so," she faltered at last. "I did not suppose you could
ever think that. I--I did not mean it; oh, truly I did not mean it!
You forget how young I am; how very little I know of the world and its
ways. Perhaps I have not even realized how deeply in earnest you were,
have deceived myself into believing you were merely amusing yourself
with me. Why, indeed, should I think otherwise? How could I venture
to believe you would ever really care in that way for such a waif as I?
You have seen other women in that great Eastern world of which I have
only read--refined, cultured, princesses, belonging to your own social
circle,--how should I suppose you could forget them, and give your
heart to a little outcast, a girl without a name or a home? Rather
should it be I who might remain perplexed and bewildered."
"I love you," he said, with simple honesty. "I seek you for my wife."
She started at these frankly spoken words, her hands partially
concealing her face, her form trembling. "Oh, I wish you hadn't said
that! It is not because I doubt you any longer; not that I fail to
appreciate all you offer me. But it is so hard to appear ungrateful,
to give nothing in return for so vast a gift."
"Then it is true that you do not love me?"
The blood flamed suddenly up into her face, but there was no lowering
of the eyes, no shrinking back. She was too honest to play the coward
before him.
"I shall not attempt to deceive you," she said, with a slow
impressiveness instantly carrying conviction. "This has already
progressed so far that I now owe you complete frankness. Donald Brant,
now and always, living or dead, married or single, wherever life may
take us, I shall love you."