"How a woman--the very best woman--loves to torture!" exclaims he, anger and relief struggling in his tone. "Oh, that I dared believe that latter part of your sentence,--that I could stand between you and all the world!"
"'Fain would I climb, but that I fear to fall,'" quotes Molly, jestingly. "You know the answer? 'If thy heart fail thee, do not climb at all.'"
"Is that a challenge?" demands he, eagerly, going nearer to her.
"I don't know." Waving him back. "Hear the oracle again. I feel strong in appropriate rhyme to-night:
"'He either fears his fate too much, Or his deserts are small, Who fears to put it to the touch To win or lose it all.'"
They are quite alone. Some one has given the door leading to the adjoining apartment a push that has entirely closed it. Molly, in her white evening gown and pale-blue ribbons, with a bunch of her favorite roses at her breast, is looking up at him, a little mocking smile upon her lips. She is cold,--perhaps a shade amused,--without one particle of sentiment.
"I fear nothing," cries Philip, in a low impassioned tone, made unwisely bold by her words, seizing her hands and pressing warm, unwelcome kisses on them; "whether I win or lose, I will speak now. Yet what shall I tell you that you do not already know? I love you,--my idol,--my darling! Oh, Molly! do not look so coldly on me."
"Don't be earnest, Philip," interrupts she, with a frown, and a sudden change of tone, raising her head, and regarding him with distasteful hauteur; "there is nothing I detest so much; and _your_ earnestness especially wearies me. When I spoke I was merely jesting, as you must have known. I do not want your love. I have told you so before. Let my hands go, Philip; your touch is _hateful_ to me."
He drops her hands as though they burned him; and she, with flushed cheeks and a still frowning brow, turns abruptly away, leaving him alone,--angered, hurt, but still adoring.
Ten minutes later, her heart--a tender one--misgives her. She has been unjust to him,--unkind. She will return and make such reparation as lies in her power.
With a light step she returns to the tea-room, where she left him, and, looking gently in, finds he has neither stirred nor raised his head since her cruel words cut him to the heart. Ten minutes,--a long time,--and all consumed in thoughts of her! Feeling still more contrite, she approaches him.