"Cynthia," he said, rising and leaning towards her—"Cynthia, child, you do enjoy your present life—you are happy, are you not?"
She looked at him silently. The smile faded; he noticed that her bosom rose and fell more quickly than before.
"You think I ought to be?" she said. "But why? Because I have been in Italy—because I have had a little success or two—because people say that I am handsome and that I have a voice? That is not my idea of happiness, Mr. Lepel, if it is yours; but you know as well as I do that it is not happiness at all. It is excitement if you like, but nothing else—not even enjoyment."
"What would you call enjoyment then, Cynthia? What is your idea of happiness?" Her hurried breathing seemed to have infected him with like shortness of respiration; there was a fire in his eyes.
"Oh," she said looking away from him and holding her hands tightly clasped upon her knee, "it is not different from other women's ideas of happiness—it is quite commonplace! It means a safe happy home of my own, with no reasonable fear that distrust or poverty or sin should invade it—congenial work—a companion that I could love and trust and work for and care for——" she stopped short.
"A husband," said Hubert slowly, "and children to kiss your lips and call you 'Mother,' and a man's love to soften and sweeten all the days of your life." She nodded, but did not speak. "And I," he said, with an irrepressible sigh—"I want a woman's love—I want a home too, and all the sweet charities of home about me. Yes, that is happiness."
"It will be yours by-and-by, I suppose," said Cynthia, in a rather choked voice—he told her that he was engaged to be married.
"I see no probability," he answered drily. "She—her guardian will not allow an engagement."
"But—she loves you?"
"I do not think so; I am sure indeed that she does not!"