She might, he thought, have accepted him then, had she chosen.

He had spoken plainly enough.

But she had laughed at him.

He felt that if she loved him, there ought to have been something of that feminine tremor, of that doubting, hesitating half-avowal of which he had perhaps read in novels, and which his own instincts taught him to desire.

But there had been no tremor nor hesitating.