Hildegarde regarded him with troubled eyes. "Yes. You do. You've given me a lovely home and a lot of pretty things. But if you haven't given me love, it doesn't amount to anything."
"Why should you say that I don't love you?"
"Because if you did, you wouldn't let me go."
"I won't let you go, if you'll give up this Crispin."
Meriweather was conscious of a surge of blood in his body. So that was the cause of it all—the boy of whom she had spoken on their ride together. Did he mean, then, so much to her? So much that she would leave her father? Well, the thing must not happen. He did not want to face the days ahead without Hildegarde.
"Oh, look here," he broke out boyishly, "I suppose it isn't any of my business, but what has happened?"
"Daddy won't let me invite Crispin here."
"Are you engaged to him, Hildegarde?"
"No."
"Good. I almost had heart failure at the thought of it. As Sally would say, 'Who would ride with me 'n everything,' if you found the One Man?"
"It is not a matter to be joked about," Hildegarde reminded him coldly. "You'd find plenty of people to ride with. And Crispin isn't the One Man. He's my friend. I've known him all my life."
"But he's in love with you," Carew interposed.
"Daddy, please! It isn't quite fair, is it? Merry isn't interested in what Crispin thinks of me."
"Oh, but I am. We both are, your father and I—we're jealous."
