"I beg to differ."
"Differ to beggary, if you will. Nevertheless, I know. I know I am right."
"I am divinely happy. I--" he began again. But she went on unheeding:
"We shall flirt, you and I, and we shall go pretty far. But we shall not fall in love and we shall not marry, because of two very excellent reasons."
"And they are?"
"A man and a woman."
"What woman? What man?"
She tossed her head in a way that might have signified anything.
"You mean that we love others--you and I?" he hazarded.
She laughed distractingly.
"Perhaps you love," he pursued. "But I am heart-free."
She walked on in silence.
"I don"t ask the name of the man, for that"s your affair. But no woman lives who can stand in the way of my bolting with you or marrying you if I choose."
"You are very positive," she said at length. "What if I am the woman and you are the man?"
For a second or two he stared blankly. "Oh," he said, crestfallen. "I see. Thanks!"
"Don"t let us discuss such serious subjects as ourselves," she proposed.
"Look at the sky and the swans--but be careful not to slip--and recollect that forgetfulness was the nectar upon which the G.o.ds subsisted."
"Quite so. There!" He squared his shoulders, but he looked at neither the sky nor the swans. He looked directly at her.
"I suppose I have just proposed to you and been refused; but, after all, what does it matter? Already I have forgotten the trifling episode. I"ve drunk of the G.o.ds" nectar. It saves one"s reason occasionally. Because I have been able to forget, I have been able to live."
"You deserve the cross for heroism," she said. "I think you are wonderful."
He colored becomingly. "Spare my modesty," he pleaded. Then: "Look here!
Now that we"re quite alone, tell me your story."
"Tell me yours first."
"Oh, mine"s so very hideous. But I don"t mind telling you. My fiancee"s mother, who had been out of the country for years, came back to find her little girl grown up, so she--well, she managed to break it all off--"
His voice slipped a note, and, turning, she saw that his face was working.
"I can"t tell you more," he said, with a choke. "I"m not as brave as I thought. I can"t help remembering. You"ll find plenty to tell you that I loved the mother. She wasn"t very old, you know."
"Why didn"t you marry her?"
At her question he stopped short in the path.
"What"s the matter?" she asked, turning.
"Why, I never thought of that way out," he answered, going white and red alternately.
"What a funny man you are!" cried Nina, startled. "Perhaps you will marry the mother yet. How old is she?"
"About thirty-seven."
"And rich?"
"Oh, yes. She"s an American." As if riches and Americans were synonymous.
"Better marry her."
"I like you better just at present," returned Carleigh.
"Thanks, awfully. But I"ve told you what woman will stand in the way of your serious views about me. Besides, I"d never dare risk such a man as you. Everything will right itself, some day."
"Nothing can be right ever."
"Never?"
"Never."
"Ah, you"ve not told me all the story then?"
"Of course not. I never shall. I never can."
For a few steps they walked on in silence.
"Do tell me your--your story," he faltered. "Tell me what you can--what you"d like to."
"My story? My stories, you mean. I"m all stories." And she laughed her merry laugh.
"But _the_ story?"
"Oh, _the_ story!" She paused for the s.p.a.ce of a heart-beat, and her eyes were serious. "Even that began with my birth," she continued. "It"s rather long, you see, to tell on a short walk. It"s a war story. I was born to battle; and not being a man, and medieval, was appointed to eternal combat with myself."
"With victory for the prize," he suggested.
She thought for a second; then dropped her head. "I don"t know. No one can tell. Perhaps--perhaps not."
"But you can tell me some of it--me," he insisted.
"But it"s so hopeless," she said wearily. "And you"re really too young to know what I mean when I talk. Then, too, it"s such a horrid story.