"I told you I loved you--if that is what you mean. And you doubted it so
strenuously that, perhaps I might be excused for doubting it myself....
What is the use of talking this way, Geraldine?"

There was a ring of exasperation in her laughter. She lifted his glass,
sipped a little, and, looking over it at him:

"I drink to our doubts concerning each other: may nothing ever occur to
disturb them."

Her cheeks had begun to burn, her eyes were too bright, her voice
unmodulated.

"Whether or not you ever again take the trouble to ask me to trust you
in that way," she said, "I'll tell you now why I don't and why I never
could. It may amuse you. Shall I?"

"By all means," he replied amiably; "but it seems to me as though you
are rather rough on me."

"You were rougher with me the first time I saw you, after all those
years. I met you with perfect confidence, remembering what you once
were. It was my first grown-up party. I was only a fool of a girl,
merely ignorant, unfit to be trusted with a liberty I'd never before
had.... And I took one glass of champagne and it--you know what it
did.... And I was bewildered and frightened, and I told you; and--you
perhaps remember how my confidence in my old play-fellow was requited.
Do you?"