I aired my house the rest of the day, having a wish to cleanse it, and protect my moral nature, much as one would rid a place of sewer gas, to protect the physical being.
I was not in a very good temper after all this, and it annoyed me to see Randolph Chance coming in before taking his train. He had been calling oftener than usual of late, but he didn’t seem to have much to say, and so his coming gave no especial pleasure.
To-day what talk we had ran on flowers for a time, when Mr. Chance, awkwardly and out-of-placedly, asked me how I liked the _Reve d’or_ rose. This was the kind of rose I had received every morning, during my illness.
I looked at him inquiringly. I confess my heart was beating faster.
“I did not,” I answered rather coldly; “there was no card or note with them.”
“I thought you’d know,” he said with increasing embarrassment; and then he added, almost desperately, “you must know, Constance, that I love you.”
“I know nothing,” I replied, drawing myself up haughtily; “I take nothing of this kind for granted. If you want me to understand, you must come out openly.”
“I have done enough, surely,” he said, “enough to lead you to guess the truth.”
“I guess nothing of this sort!” I reiterated; “what right have you to place me in this position? What right have you, or any other man to deprive a woman of one of her dearest privileges—that of being wooed?”
“Constance!” he cried, and all his embarrassment was gone, “aren’t there a thousand ways of saying ‘I love you?’ and haven’t I said it in every way but one?”
“That one was the most important of all,” I answered; “I would have given more to hear those words than to receive every other token.”
His face lighted up with a sudden flash, and he started impulsively toward me.
“Then you _do_ love me, my darling—I have hardly dared to hope.”
But I drew back, and answered passionately,
“No, I do not! I love no man who can trifle with a young girl, or any woman—no man who has the effrontery to expect some one to take for granted a courtship that has never existed!”
“Go to Miss Sprig and inquire; she has more reason to take your love for granted than I.”
“I’ll not go to her, but I shall leave you,” he said, with a white face. “You certainly don’t care for me, or you would never deal me such an unjust thrust as this.”