“Pamela, I asked you to give me your hand to-day. I ask you again to be my wife. Oh, when I saw you stand with the little dark child in your arms, which they thought was ours, I vowed you were the one woman in the world for me! Oh, I have been a base wretch! I owe you money, I owe you my honour. I owe you my life. I owe you something more worth than all these; the only real, the only pure love I have ever known. Pamela! You’ll make a man of me yet, if you’ll have me.”
She had once been shaken, flattered by his attentions; had looked up at him as a being, splendid, dashing, gallant, altogether out of her sphere. When he had courted her, it was as if a god had stooped. But this evening he was something quite different to her: a weak, wild youth whom her love might steady; a spendthrift, a gambler, an amiable prodigal for whom she might prepare the fatted calf, whom her ring might bind to home; one, in fine, who had need of her. It was the mother in her who smiled on him now with wet eyes.
Under a high moon, and a sky full of stars they presently discussed plans that seemed to Pamela to combine the bliss of Eden with the practicality of a work-a-day world.
“I’ll not give up my business, sir! I’ll never pretend to be other than I am. No false lady airs for me!”
“You wouldn’t be Pamela if there were. You shall do exactly what you like! But I’m going to work too. Indeed, my dearest girl, I will! And we’ll have that cottage somewhere in the green, not too far but what you can get the coach of a morning.”
“Oh,” cried Pamela, clasping her hands and laughing. “I’ll have roses in the garden, and sit out of a Sunday in a pink muslin dress with flounces!”
CHAPTER XIII
In which my Lady Kilcroney makes an Indelicate
Fuss
My Lord Kilcroney had none of your nasty prudish minds that think harm of a kiss. To salute a rosy cheek, or clasp a trim waist came as natural to him as to toss off a tankard of brown ale, or light his long clay, or sit in the sunshine. And indeed, my Lady, knowing him, had as a rule an indulgence for such peccadilloes; the merest shrug of the shoulders or a “Fie for shame, my Lord!” in a voice scarce more indignant than that in which she chid the littler Denis for putting his fingers in the sugar bowl. But the mischief was in it, this summer at Weymouth, Kitty being in attendance on her Royals, that such a change should come over the whole spirit of the whilom sensible spouse.
Such a hullaballoo over a kiss! If ever there was anything likely to drive a really faithful husband to desperate courses, it was this unexpected, undeserved, severity.