“Very well, then,” he said, striving to speak coolly.  “It is this:  Will you marry me, Eileen?”

She turned perfectly white and stared at him, stunned.  And he repeated his question, speaking slowly, but unsteadily.

“N-no,” she said; “I cannot.  Why—­why, you know that, don’t you?”

“Will you tell me why, Eileen?”

“I—­I don’t know why.  I think—­I suppose that it is because I do not love you—­that way.”

“Yes,” he said, “that, of course, is the reason.  I wonder—­do you suppose that—­in time—­perhaps—­you might care for me—­that way?”

“I don’t know.”  She glanced up at him fearfully, fascinated, yet repelled.  “I don’t know,” she repeated pitifully.  “Is it—­can’t you help thinking of me in that way?  Can’t you be as you were?”

“No, I can no longer help it.  I don’t want to help it, Eileen.”

“But—­I wish you to,” she said in a low voice.  “It is that which is coming between us.  Oh, don’t you see it is?  Don’t you feel it—­feel what it is doing to us?  Don’t you understand how it is driving me back into myself?  Whom am I to go to if not to you?  What am I to do if your affection turns into this—­this different attitude toward me?  You were so perfectly sweet and reasonable—­so good, so patient; and now—­and now I am losing confidence in you—­in myself—­in our friendship.  I’m no longer frank with you; I’m afraid at times—­afraid and self-conscious—­conscious of you, too—­afraid of what seemed once the most natural of intimacies.  I—­I loved you so dearly—­so fearlessly—­”

Tears blinded her; she bent her head, and they fell on the soft delicate stuff of her gown, flashing downward in the sunlight.

“Dear,” he said gently, “nothing is altered between us.  I love you in that way, too.”

“D-do you—­really?” she stammered, shrinking away from him.

“Truly.  Nothing is altered; nothing of the bond between us is weakened.  On the contrary, it is strengthened.  You cannot understand that now.  But what you are to believe and always understand is that our friendship must endure.  Will you believe it?”

“Y-yes—­” She buried her face in her handkerchief and sat very still for a long time.  He had risen and walked to the farther end of the veranda; and for a minute he stood there, his narrowed eyes following the sky flight of the white gulls off Wonder Head.

When at length he returned to her she was sitting low in the swing, both arms extended along the back of the seat.  Evidently she had been waiting for him; and her face was very grave and sorrowful.

“I want to ask you something,” she said—­“merely to prove that you are a little bit illogical.  May I?”

He nodded, smiling.

“Could you and I care for each other more than we now do, if we were married?”

“I think so,” he said.

“Why?” she demanded, astonished.  Evidently she had expected another answer.