“You expected him to,” I said firmly. She turned to me with an appearance of interest, as though I might be able to interpret to her something that had been causing her puzzle. “Or you wouldn’t have looked at him as you say you did—or smiled at him, as you admit you did. But you were wrong to expect him to, because he’s not that kind of man.”
“What kind of man?”
“The kind of man to catch you in his arms, smother you in kisses (allow me the old phrase), tell you that he understood all you felt, knew all you were giving up, realised the great thing you were doing for him.”
Winifred was listening. I went on with my imaginary scene of romantic fervour.
“That when he contrasted that mean little place with the beauties you were accustomed to, with the beauties which were right and proper for you, when he saw your daintiness soiled by that dust, that gown whose hem he would willingly——”
“He needn’t say quite as much as that,” interrupted Winifred, smiling a little.
“Well, or words to that effect,” said I. “That when he did all this and saw all this, you know, he loved you more, and knew that you loved him more than he had dared to dream, with a deeper love, a love that gave up for him all that you loved next best and second only to him; that after seeing your tears he would never doubt again that you would face all trials and all troubles with him at your side—Don’t you think, if he’d said something of that kind, accompanying his words with the appropriate actions——” I paused.
“Well?” asked Winifred.
“Don’t you think you might have been living in that horrid little house now, instead of being about to contract an alliance with Sir Barton Amesbury?”
“How do you know I shall do that?” she cried.