I'm sure you let them know that plainly enough last evening." "But you said"-- began the stupefied Clarence.
"Never mind what I said.

It's always what I say, never what YOU say; and you don't say anything." The woodland influence must have been still very strong upon Clarence that he did not discover in all this that, while Susy's general capriciousness was unchanged, there was a new and singular insincerity in her manifest acting.

She was either concealing the existence of some other real emotion, or assuming one that was absent.

But he did not notice it, and only replied tenderly:-- "But I want to say a great deal to you, Susy.

I want to say that if you still feel as I do, and as I have always felt, and you think you could be happy as I would be if--if--we could be always together, we need not conceal it from your mother and father any longer.