Amanda, moved by woman's quick compassion, spurred by sympathy, and
feeling the exaltation such an appeal always carries, felt her heart
soften toward the man beside her. But her innate wisdom and her own
strong hold on her emotions prevented her from doing any rash or
foolish thing. Her voice was gentle as she answered, but there was a
finality in it that the man should have noted.
"I'm sorry, Lyman, but I can't do as you say. We can't will whom we
will love. I know you and I would never be happy together."
"But perhaps it will come to you." He was no easy loser. "I'll just
keep on hoping that some day you'll care for me."
"Don't do that. I'm positive, sure, that I'll never love you. You and I
were never made for each other."
But he refused to accept her answer as final. "Who knows, Amanda," he
said lightly, yet with all the feeling he was capable of at that time,
"perhaps you'll love and marry Lyman Mertzheimer yet! Stranger things
than that have happened. I'm sorry about that word. It seemed just like
a good joke to catch on to the right spelling that way and beat the
others in the match. You are too strict, Amanda, too closely bound by
the Lancaster County ideas of right and wrong. They are too narrow for
these days."
"Oh, no!" she said quickly. "Dishonesty is never right!"
"Well," he laughed, "have it your way! See how docile I have become
already! You'll reform me yet, I bet!"
At the door of her home he bade her good-night and went off whistling,
feeling only a slight unhappiness at her refusal to marry him. It was,
he felt, but a temporary rebuff. She would capitulate some day. His
consummate egotism buoyed his spirits and he went down the road
dreaming of the day he'd marry Amanda Reist and of the wonderful gowns
and jewels he would lavish upon her.