Now you are acting bravely. Perhaps at some future time we may become
friends again--oh yes, and I do hope that--but in the mean time you
will treat me as if I were a stranger to you."
"That is quite impossible," said he decisively. "You ask too much of
me, Wenna." "Would not that be the simpler way?" she said, looking
at him again with the frank and earnest eyes; and he knew she was
right.
"And the length of time?" he said.
"Until Mr. Roscorla comes home again, at all events," she said.
She had touched an angry chord. "What has he to do with us?" the young
man said almost fiercely. "I refuse to have him come in as arbiter or
in any way whatever. Let him mind his own business; and I can tell
you, when he and I come to talk over this engagement of yours--"
"You promised not to speak of that," she said quietly, and he
instantly ceased.
"Well, Wenna," he said after a minute or two, "I think you ask too
much, but you must have it your own way. I won't annoy you and drive
you into a corner: you may depend on that, to be perfect strangers for
an indefinite time--Then you won't speak to me when I see you passing
to church?"
"Oh yes," she said, looking down: "I did not mean strangers like
that."
"And I thought," said he, with something more than disappointment in
his face, "that when I proposed to--to relieve you from my visits, you
would at least let us have one more afternoon together--only one--for
a drive, you know.
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