"You make fun of me," she said, very deliberately, letting her
eyes droop; then she looked up again suddenly and continued, with
a certain naive expression of disappointment gathering in her
face. "I have been too free with you. Father Beret told me not to
forget my dignity when in your company. He told me you might
misunderstand me. I don't care; I shall not fence with you again."
She laughed, but there was no joyous freedom in the sound.
"Why, Alice--my dear Miss Roussillon, you do me a wrong; I beg a
thousand pardons if I've hurt you," he cried, stepping nearer to
her, "and I can never forgive myself. You have somehow
misunderstood me, I know you have!"
On his part it was exaggerating a mere contact of mutual feelings
into a dangerous collision. He was as much self-deceived as was
she, and he made more noise about it.
"It is you who have misunderstood me," she replied, smiling
brightly now, but with just a faint, pitiful touch of regret, or
self-blame lingering in her voice. "Father Beret said you would. I
did not believe him; but--"
"And you shall not believe him," said Beverley. "I have not
misunderstood you. There has been nothing. You have treated me
kindly and with beautiful friendliness. You have not done or said
a thing that Father Beret or anybody else could criticise. And if
I have said or done the least thing to trouble you I repudiate it--
I did not mean it.
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