"That arrangement would not suit me. I like to work for myself," she answered, smiling.
They were standing on opposite sides of a small table on which the portfolio of drawings rested. Percival was holding up one side of the portfolio, and she was placing the sketches one by one upon each other.
"Do you know what you look like?" said Percival, suddenly. There was a thrill of pleasurable excitement in his tone, a glow of ardour in his dark eyes. "You look like a tall, white lily to-night, with your white dress and your gleaming hair. The pure white of the petals and the golden heart of the lily have found their match."
"I am recompensed for the trouble I took in changing my dress this evening," said Elizabeth, glancing down at it complacently. "I did not expect that it would bring me so poetic a compliment. Thank you, Percival."
"'Consider the lilies; they toil not, neither do they spin,'" quoted Percival, recklessly. "Why should you toil and spin?—a more beautiful lily than any one of them. If Solomon in all his glory was not equal to those Judean lilies, then I may safely say that the Queen of Sheba would be beaten outright by our Queen Elizabeth, with her white dress and her golden locks!"
"Mrs. Heron would say you were profane," said Elizabeth, tranquilly. "These comparisons of yours don't please me exactly, Percival; they always remind me of the flowery leaders in some of the evening papers, and make me remember that you are a journalist. They have a professional air."
"A professional air!" repeated Percival, in disgust. He let the lid of the portfolio fall with a bang upon the table. Several of the sketches flew wildly over the floor, and Elizabeth turned to him with a reproachful look, but she had no time to protest, for in that moment he had seized her hands and drawn her aside with him to a sofa that stood on one side of the room.
"You shall not answer me in that way," he said, half-irritated, half-amused, and wholly determined to have his way. "You shall sit down there and listen to me in a serious spirit, if you can. No, don't shake your head and look at me so mockingly. It is time that we understood each other, and I don't mean another night to pass over our heads without some decision being arrived at. Elizabeth, you must know that you have my happiness in your hands. I can't live without you. I can't bear to see you making yourself a slave to everybody, with no one to love you, no one to work for you and save you from anxiety and care. Let me work for you, now, dearest; be my wife, and I will see that you have your proper place, and that you are tended and cared for as a woman ought to be."
Elizabeth had withdrawn her hands from his; she even turned a little pale. He fancied that the tears stood in her eyes.
"Oh," she said, "I wish you had not said this to me, Percival."