“Mademoiselle, have you only unkind things to say to me—me, who would have given my life to have averted them or helped you through all this? You do not seem to comprehend that I love you—love you—have journeyed out to Los Angeles and back to find you and now,”—he drew in his breath, “ah! now I never mean to let you go.” He took a step toward her but she eluded him, standing well back in the room where he could not see how her lips trembled as she said:
“You must not talk to me like this; I—I cannot bear it. I am all unstrung to-day and you startle me with your calm air of taking things for granted.”
“Do I, chérie?” tenderly. “But you see I love you and you are going to love me, too.”
“No,” she replied, drawing still further back, “no, Monsieur Grémond, I am not.”
Something unflinching about the girl’s quiet tone made the man say beseechingly, “Ah! Mademoiselle Julie, do not kill me!”
“Kill you? You never thought whether you would kill me or not, did you, when you almost taught me to love you in those old days and then rode away? Many a man does that, expecting a girl to take everything for granted and receive him with open arms when he returns. And many a girl waits and waits, eating her heart out meanwhile. But I am not that kind, Monsieur!”
“I was very fond of you—so fond that when I knew you were in town I wondered whether I cared to see you—wondered whether I would have loved you had you loved me and last night I thought perhaps I should see you at the Wares’; but we did not go, and now you come to me and at the first sight of you I know it is not love—could never have been love under any circumstances!”
“Are you sure you know what love is, Mademoiselle?” and seeing the color spread in a crimson wave over her face he cried, “Some one has stolen you away from me! Tell me, is it not true?”
“What right have you to ask questions?” she demanded, angered by his assumption of authority. And then more quietly, “We must not quarrel, Monsieur, we have been altogether too good friends for that. I want to tell you that we are interested in your explorations and how proud we are to know that so many of your plans have been accomplished.”
“Fie, Monsieur! Are you going to cry baby because you can’t have the world all your way?”