"Fulvia—" he said, in a different tone.
"Yes."
He had gone over the possible scene fifty times in imagination. He had pictured himself as saying that or this in careful kind words, hinting, indeed, at the true state of his own feelings, yet so as not to shock or grieve her. But he had not once pictured himself as coming out suddenly, in desperation, with the bald request—
"Fulvia, will you be my wife?"
It was not a well-selected place for an offer of marriage. The room was absolutely empty, with the exception of their two selves and the box on which Fulvia sat. Everybody knows how dreary is the impression made by an absolutely empty room. Streaks of paint disfigured the blindless and curtainless window, which glared dismally on the pair. Fulvia had torn her dress walking downstairs, and her crape had gathered dust by the way. Nigel's own shoulders were whitened by contact with the pantry wall. No whit of what Mrs. Duncan called "poetical glamour" existed to enhance the occasion. All was bare and cold.
A pause followed Nigel's abrupt proposal of marriage.
Fulvia gazed fixedly down. She did not flush now, but grew pale.
"Is it because Ethel has refused him, and he turns to me as a pis aller?" she asked herself.
As she made no answer, he spoke again, not without agitation—
"I have not much to give you. It is not as things have been—but I would do my utmost—would strive to repay something of what you have lost. I would devote my life to that. I will, if you will let me."