"Look here. That's the last thing on earth I want to do. I'm only trying to get you not to take it too seriously, and I want all the blame."
Her earnest eyes now looked full into his, taking a great deal of courage, for his were sparkling, so full of interest in her, and at the same time so mocking.
"I see that I must tell you. It is this: I have had odd feelings lately of unrest, and a kind of anticipation, as though just around the corner some moving, thrilling experience were waiting for me. This sensation makes me reckless. I felt it just before I moved toward you, and, I think—I think—"
"You think I was playing up to you?"
"Not quite that. But I think you felt something unusual about me."
"I did, and I do. You're not like any woman I've ever known. Tell me, have you thought of me as—caring for you, thinking a good deal about you?"
"I thought you rather disliked me. But please let us forget about all this. I never want to think of it again."
"Of course not," he assented gravely.
With a stab of almost physical pain, she remembered that she had half unconsciously kissed him back again. Her face and neck were dyed crimson. With a little gasp she said: "Of the two I am the more to blame."
"Is this the New England conscience that I've heard so much about?" he asked, filled with amazement.
"I suppose so."
He regarded her with the same half-mocking, half-quizzical look in his eyes, but his voice deepened.
"Oh, my dear, you are a sweet thing! And to think that you are Eden's wife, and that I must never kiss you again!"
She could not meet his eyes now. She was afraid of him, and still more afraid of herself. She felt that the
