"
"No," she replied, "because they struck me as a little ridiculous."
"Ridiculous!" he repeated, with such sincere dismay that she was moved to
compassion. "Ridiculous, Dora, why?"
His horror-struck, almost tearful voice gave her a pang of self-reproach,
as if she had struck some defenceless dumb animal.
"Well, there were things in them that I did not understand."
"But I could make you understand them," he said, with a sudden
self-assertion which startled her. The weakest man is, after all, a
man--so far as women are concerned.
"I think you had better not," she said, hurrying her steps.
But he refused to alter his pace, and he disregarded her warning.
"They meant," he said, "that I wanted you to know that I love you."
There was a little pause. Dora was struck dumb by a chill sense of
foreboding. It was like a momentary glance into a future full of trouble.
"I am sorry," she said, "for that. I hope--that you may find that it is a
mistake."
"But it is not a mistake.
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