"Are you?" said Kitty.
There were tears in her voice.
"Am I not?" He was holding her hand now, and she did not draw it away even when he raised it, somewhat hesitatingly, to his lips. He went on in a very low voice:—"It would make the happiness of my life to have you always with me. But I must not hope for that."
"Why not?" said Kitty, giving him both hands instead of one; "when it would make mine, too."
And after that there was no more to be said.
"Tell me," she whispered, a little later, "am I at all now like the little girl in Gower-street that you used to know?"
"Not a bit," he answered, kissing her. "You are dearer, sweeter, lovelier than any little girl in Gower-street or anywhere else in the whole wide world."
"And you forgive me for my foolishness?"
"My darling," he said, "your foolishness was nothing to my own. And if you can bear to tie yourself to a blind man, so many years older than yourself, who has proved himself the most arrogant and conceited fool alive——"
"Hush!" said Kitty. "I shall not allow you to speak in that way—of the man I love."