“Just as if I had been a young man?”

“No!  That wasn’t possible.”

She was silent.  Then, “The conversation has got back into the old quarter,” she said.  “You are talking about me again.  Have you heard from your friends since they went away?”

“What friends?”

“Those you were camping with.”

“No.”

“What did they say when they heard that you had found a young doctress at Jocelyn’s?  How did you break the fact to them?  What jokes did they make?  You need n’t be afraid to tell me!” she cried.  “Give me Mr. Johnson’s comments.”

He looked at her in surprise that incensed her still more, and rendered her incapable of regarding the pain with which he answered her.  “I ’m afraid,” he said, “that I have done something to offend you.”

“Oh no!  What could you have done?”

“Then you really mean to ask me whether I would let any one make a joke of you in my presence?”

“Yes; why not?”

“Because it was impossible,” he answered.

“Why was it impossible?” she pursued.

“Because—­I love you.”

She had been looking him defiantly in the eyes, and she could not withdraw her gaze.  For the endless moment that ensued, her breath was taken away.  Then she asked in a low, steady voice, “Did you mean to say that?”

“No.”

“I believe you, and I forgive you.  No, no!” she cried, at a demonstration of protest from him, “don’t speak again!”

He obeyed, instantly, implicitly.  With the tiller in his hand he looked past her and guided the boat’s course.  It became intolerable.

“Have I ever done anything that gave you the right to—­to—­say that?” she asked, without the self-command which she might have wished to show.

“No,” he said, “you were only the most beautiful”—­

“I am not beautiful!  And if I were”—­

“It wasn’t to be helped!  I saw from the first how good and noble you were, and”—­

“This is absurd!” she exclaimed.  “I am neither good nor noble; and if I were”—­

“It wouldn’t make any difference.  Whatever you are, you are the one woman in the world to me; and you always will be.”

“Mr. Libby!”

“Oh, I must speak now!  You were always thinking, because you had studied a man’s profession, that no one would think of you as a woman, as if that could make any difference to a man that had the soul of a man in him!”

“No, no!” she protested.  “I did n’t think that.  I always expected to be considered as a woman.”

“But not as a woman to fall in love with.  I understood.  And that somehow made you all the dearer to me.  If you had been a girl like other girls, I should n’t have cared for you.”

“Oh!”

“I did n’t mean to speak to you to-day.  But sometime I did mean to speak; because, whatever I was, I loved you; and I thought you did n’t dislike me.”