“You needn't tell me,” she said. “They've made you give up. Your father's won--you're going to do what he wants. You've given up.”
Still without looking at her, he inclined his head in affirmation.
She gave a little cry of compassion, and came and sat near him. “Bibbs,” she said. “I can be glad of one thing, though it's selfish. I can be glad you came straight to me. It's more to me than even if you'd come because you were happy.” She did not speak again for a little while; then she said: “Bibbs--dear--could you tell me about it? Do you want to?”
Still he did not look up, but in a voice, shaken and husky he asked her a question so grotesque that at first she thought she had misunderstood his words.
“What did you say, Bibbs?” she asked, quietly.
His tone and attitude did not change. “Will you marry me?”
Both of her hands leaped to her cheeks--she grew red and then white. She rose slowly and moved backward from him, staring at him, at first incredulously, then with an intense perplexity more and more luminous in her wide eyes; it was like a spoken question. The room filled with strangeness in the long silence--the two were so strange to each other. At last she said:
“Bibbs, look at me!” Her voice was loud and clear. “What made you say that? Look at me!”
He could not look at her, and he could not speak.
“What was it that made you?” she said. “I want you to tell me.”
She went closer to him, her eyes ever brighter and wider with that intensity of wonder. “You've given up--to your father,” she said, slowly, “and then you came to ask me--” She broke off. “Bibbs, do you want me to marry you?”
“No!” she cried. “You do not. Then what made you ask me? What is it that's happened?”
“Wait,” she said. “Let me think. It's something that happened since our walk this morning--yes, since you left me at noon. Something happened that--” She stopped abruptly, with a tremulous murmur of amazement and dawning comprehension. She remembered that Sibyl had gone to the New House.
Bibbs swallowed painfully and contrived to say, “I do--I do want you to--marry me, if--if--you could.”
She looked at him, and slowly shook her head. “Bibbs, do you--” Her voice was as unsteady as his--little more than a whisper. “Do you think I'm--in love with you?”