CHAPTER XII.
A TALK OF WEDDINGS.
"You must decide and answer me, Jaqueline. You know I love you. The marriage would be pleasing to both sides of the family. My holiday is over, and I must rejoin my chief. I want the matter settled. If you are not convinced that you can love me, I shall take it as a sign that there is very little hope for me—none at all, in fact—and go my way."
There was something rather stern in the tone, and the pretty girl's humor protested. She liked the tender wooing, the graceful compliments, the sort of uncertainty when she could salve her conscience by saying she was not really engaged and feel compelled to hold herself aloof from certain attentions. For whatever coquetries a Virginia girl might indulge in, an engagement was sacred.
"I do wonder if you really love me?" She longed to temporize. There was always something happening, and now there was to be a week's party at Annapolis and a ball and several sailing excursions. Business would interfere with his going. If she could keep free until after that!
He looked at her steadily. "If you doubt it after my year of devotion, I hardly know how to convince you. Words will not do it. You must believe it."
"For it would be a sad thing for either of us to make a mistake," she returned plaintively.
"You asked for three months to consider. And yet you admitted that you cared for me even then. If your love has not increased any in that time it certainly argues ill for me. And now it must be a plain answer, yes or no. It is foolish to trifle this way. Which is it, Jaqueline?"
He took both her hands in his and impelled her to meet his eyes. Her face was scarlet, her eyes drooped, her expression was so beseeching that it almost conquered him as it had times before. But he was going away with Mr. Monroe, and it would be a month before he saw her again.
"Yes or no!"
"You are cruel." Her eyes filled with tears. She felt his hands tremble, strong as they were.