“Don’t you want them to be real sooner? Can’t I persuade you to break away now?”
She bowed her head, vanishing from him under her conniving hat-brim.
“Why should we dream away another year? Look at me, dear! Don’t you understand how I want you for my wife?”
For a moment she remained motionless; then she raised on him eyes of such despairing dearness that he half-released her waist from his hold. But suddenly her look changed and deepened inscrutably. “I’m not sure if I do understand,” she said. “Is it—is it because you’re not certain of continuing to care for me?”
Archer sprang up from his seat. “My God—perhaps—I don’t know,” he broke out angrily.
May Welland rose also; as they faced each other she seemed to grow in womanly stature and dignity. Both were silent for a moment, as if dismayed by the unforeseen trend of their words: then she said in a low voice: “If that is it—is there someone else?”
“Someone else—between you and me?” He echoed her words slowly, as though they were only half-intelligible and he wanted time to repeat the question to himself. She seemed to catch the uncertainty of his voice, for she went on in a deepening tone: “Let us talk frankly, Newland. Sometimes I’ve felt a difference in you; especially since our engagement has been announced.”
“Dear—what madness!” he recovered himself to exclaim.
She met his protest with a faint smile. “If it is, it won’t hurt us to talk about it.” She paused, and added, lifting her head with one of her noble movements: “Or even if it’s true: why shouldn’t we speak of it? You might so easily have made a mistake.”