“I can’t. It’s awfully cold, and—” said Lena, but she followed his lead as she remonstrated.
“And you have on a wretched little thin coat. Why aren’t you decently dressed?”
“I haven’t anything.” Lena spoke under her breath. Dick stamped his foot as a substitute for a curse, whipped off his heavy great-coat, wrapped her in it, and pushed her down on to a bench.
“Lena,” he said, standing squarely in front of her, “I know I’ve no right to hope for anything—no right to speak, even, when you know me so little; but, by Heaven, I can’t endure to see you grinding out your life in this way, when there’s even a chance that you will let me prevent it. You flower of a girl, you! Oh, Lena, I love you—I love you!”
He caught a small white hand that held together the heavy coat, and kissed it in a kind of frenzy, while Lena, rigid with desire to be quite sure what this signified, peered stolidly at him from over the big collar. She was too wise in her generation to leap to conclusions about the ultimate meaning of Dick’s passion. She would not unbottle any emotion until she knew.
“Lena, if you could see how I love you, you’d trust me, I think, even with yourself. If you will be my wife—”
Something in Lena seemed to break, and she gave a gasp of relief and gratitude that was almost prayer and approached love. Then she buried her face in her hands and sobbed aloud, as Dick put both arms around her and drew her head to his shoulder.
“Lena, can you—do you love me a little?” he whispered, as if in awe.
“Oh, Mr. Percival,” said Lena, “I do! How could I help it? But I could not dream of your loving poor little insignificant me.”
“And how could I help it?” he said, mocking her. “Little, you may be, but this part is bigger than the whole world. You belong to me now, and I won’t have you depreciate yourself.”