Louisa May Alcott: Rose in Bloom

Chapter 18. WHICH WAS IT? (continued)

"Please don't, Mac!"

"Do which, love or hate?"

"Don't do either go and care for someone else; there are plenty of nice girls who will be glad to make you happy," said Rose, intent upon ending her disquiet in some way.

"That is too easy. I enjoy working for my blessings, and the harder I have to work, the more I value them when they come."

"Then if I suddenly grew very kind, would you stop caring about me?" asked Rose, wondering if that treatment would free her from a passion which both touched and tormented her.

"Try and see." But there was a traitorous glimmer in Mac's eyes which plainly showed what a failure it would be.

"No, I'll get something to do, so absorbing I shall forget all about you."

"Don't think about me if it troubles you," he said tenderly.

"I can't help it." Rose tried to catch back the words, but it was too late, and she added hastily, "That is, I cannot help wishing you would forget me. It is a great disappointment to find I was mistaken when I hoped such fine things of you."

"Yes, you were very sure that it was love when it was poetry, and now you want poetry when I've nothing on hand but love. Will both together please you?"

"Try and see."

"I'll do my best. Anything else?" he asked, forgetting the small task she had given him in his eagerness to attempt the greater.

"Tell me one thing. I've often wanted to know, and now you speak of it I'll venture to ask. Did you care about me when you read Keats to me last summer?"