uld have dreaded so
much at this time as a conversation about Phillida, and, of all people
he most disliked to speak of her with Philip Gouverneur. He made no
reply at all to Philip's blunt statement of the subject on which he
proposed to converse. But Gouverneur was too much absorbed in holding
himself to his plan of action to take note of his companion's lack of
responsiveness.

"I want to ask whether you still love her or not, Charley," said
Philip, with a directness that seemed brutal, his gaze fixed on the
wall.

"I have no claims upon her," said Millard, "if that is what you want to
know."

"That isn't what I want to know. I asked if you still loved her?"

"I don't know whether even you have a right to ask that question," said
Millard with manifest annoyance.

"I am her cousin," said Philip, looking up at Millard with eyes
strangely unsteady and furtive.

"If there were any charge that I had wronged her, you, as her cousin,
might have a right to inquire," said Millard, who fancied that
Gouverneur had a personal end in making the inquiry, and who at any rate
did not care to be known as a discarded and broken-hearted lover. "I'll
tell you plainly that it is a subject on which I don't wish to speak
with anybody. Besides it's hardly fair to come to me as Phillida's
cousin, when there is reason to believe your feelings toward her are
more than cousinly. I have no claims on Phillida, no expectation of a
renewal of our engagement, and I certainly have no complaint to make of
her. Nobody has any right to inquire further."

Charley Millard got up and walked the floor in excitement as he said
this.

"You're plaguey cross, Charley. I never saw you so impolite before.
Didn't know you could be. I suppose you're right, by Jupiter! I went too
straight at the mark, and you had a right to resent it. But I had to go
at it like a man having a tooth pulled, for fear I'd back out at the
last moment."

There was a ten seconds' pause, during which Millard sat down. Then
Philip spoke again.

"I know, Charley; you have misunderstood. You think I wish to get a
disclaimer that will clear the way for me. Charley--" Philip spoke now
in a voice low and just a little husky,--"if I loved Phillida and
believed she could love me, do you think I'd wait to ask your
permission? If I wished to marry her and she loved me, I wouldn't ask
any man's permission! And I came here not in my own interest, nor in
your interest either. I am here o