The Gentleman from Indiana by Booth Tarkington
page 354 of 357 (99%)
page 354 of 357 (99%)
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While his daughter was dancing cotillions, a stranger had taken his hand--
and--" A sob rose in her throat and checked her utterance for a moment; but she threw up her head and met his eyes proudly. "Gratitude, Mr. Harkless!" she cried. "I am James Fisbee's daughter." He fell back from the bench with a sharp exclamation, and stared at her through the gray twilight. She went on hurriedly, again not looking at him: "When you showed me that you cared for me--when you told me that you did-- I--do you think I wanted to care for you? I wanted to do something to show you that I could be ashamed of my vile neglect of him--something to show you his daughter could be grateful. If I had loved you, what I did would have been for that--and I could not have done it. And how could I have shown my gratitude if I had done it for love? And it has been such dear, happy work, the little I have done, that it seems, after all, that I have done it for love of myself. But--but when you first told me--" She broke off with a strange, fluttering, half inarticulate little laugh that was half tears; and then resumed in another tone: "When you told me you cared that night--that night we were here--how could I be sure? It had been only two days, you see, and even if I could have been sure of myself, why, I couldn't have told you. Oh! I had so brazenly thrown myself at your head, time and again, those two days, in my--my worship of your goodness to my father and my excitement in recognizing in his friend the hero of my girlhood, that you had every right to think I cared; but if--but if I had --if I had--loved you with my whole soul, I could not have--why, no woman could have--I mean the sort of girl I am couldn't have admitted it--must have denied it. And what I was trying to do for you when we met in Rouen was--was courting you. You surely see I couldn't have done it if I had cared. It would have been brazen! And do you think that then I could have |
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