"Good heavens!" he burst out. "Do you lump _us_? I thought that you and I were--were----"
"Friends?" she filled in without a quaver. "We were. But you've changed, Wallie."
"No"--her eyes were somber, smoldering--"she _hates_ me!" Blanche emphasized the word with her whip on the mare's flank. "She thinks I'm awful! Hasn't she said that to _you_?"
"She has said nothing of the sort. She has nothing to do with it."
"She has everything!" Blanche said, suddenly, passionately. She jerked the mare's head fiercely.
They had turned out of the dazzling street into a softly sprinkled side way, where the pepper trees wept their tassels in the dust. Blanche kept her eyes on the bit of blue sky that seemed to close the end of the street like a jewel in a setting.
"Before she came you took me for just what I was. You believed in me, Walter. But ever since she said things, I feel--oh, I don't know! As if you were a long way off, watching me, and wondering about everything I say and do."
He broke in: "Because once or twice I criticised some trifle!"
"Oh," she cried, "don't think I wouldn't take criticism from you! I'd take a lot. I'd even wear the sort of hats your sister does!"
"Oh, confound the sort of hats! You know that's not it. It's--I--love you, Blanche."
He brought out the little isolated sentence breathlessly, with a jerk. His sallow face was flushed.
Blanche was very pale. The horses took five steps while there was silence. Then:
"It's sweet of you to say that." The girl's voice was shaken. "But you know, Walter, as _she_ does, I'm not her kind."
"Don't you, Walter?" She looked at him earnestly. "And I'm not your kind, either. I mean, I'm not like the women you've known. _She's_ made me feel that--your sister. It's one reason why I hate her. Oh, I do!" She nodded at him. "You may as well know that. She makes me see what I've missed--little things I thought didn't matter. But now----"
"But, child," he interrupted, exasperated, manlike, with her self-depreciations, "those little things don't count! It isn't that. But if you loved me----"
"If I _loved_ you?" She turned large, astonished eyes on him.
"Well, you wouldn't take things from Blair Hemming. I won't stand it," he broke out. "He was talking about you, Blanche."