"I was frightened then, and—and ashamed of myself, because what he had said was true. And I didn't want him to go away altogether. I thought perhaps after all I did love him a little. Oh, I don't know what I thought. But I went upstairs to the window to look at him coming from the stables—he had ridden over—and to see what he looked like. And Bunting came down from the attic and caught me there, but of course he didn't know what I was doing, and he startled me so much that I flew out at him."
She laughed a little. "Poor darling Bunting!" she said. "I startled him. I don't think he has ever seen me like that before. But I told him I was sorry afterwards, and he was awfully sweet about it and said it didn't matter a damn. I think he'd have been still more surprised if he'd known what I was there for. Fortunately he wasn't near enough to the window to see Dick.
"Well, then, I was rather miserable, but I was angry too at the way he had spoken to me. Sometimes I was one and sometimes I was the other, and I didn't know whether I cared for him or not. The next morning it had all calmed down rather, and I made up my mind I wouldn't care whether he came back or not, and that if he did I would behave just as I had before, and pretend that nothing had happened. I don't know whether I should have been able to keep that up if he hadn't come to lunch next day. When Jarvis brought up his name I was glad, though I don't think I showed it, did I?"
Caroline reminded her of what she had said, and she smiled and said she thought she had hidden it very well, and by the way he behaved she thought he intended to ignore what had happened too.
"I was a little frightened when you went indoors and left me alone with him," she said. "But for some time he went on talking as if he had forgotten everything, and I was rather grateful to him, and felt that I did like him very much. He's so strong and—and self-controlled; and I admire strong men, who won't let you play with them. I had had enough of that. I didn't want to play with him any more, and I wanted him to see that I was sorry, without having to say so. So I suppose I was extra nice to him. And I did want him at least as a friend.
"Then suddenly he said something. That's his way—when you're not expecting it. He said perhaps he'd made a mistake about me yesterday, but he didn't think he'd been altogether mistaken. If I didn't love him very much now, he wanted me all the same, and he was sure he could make me happy. Would I marry him and let him try?
"It was the last thing I expected. I didn't know what to say or what to think. Then he said that he shouldn't worry me with love-making until I was ready for it. He said in his quiet deep sort of way, 'When you are, my dear, you'll have all you can want,' and he made me feel, somehow, that perhaps I should come to want it—from him, I mean."
She stopped for a moment as if she were examining herself. "I can't think now what made me say, yes," she said. "I didn't feel in the least like I did when I—when I said yes, before. I think if he had—had kissed me, or treated me as if I had already given him everything, I should have drawn back, perhaps run away from him. But he just took both my hands, and looked me straight in the face and said: 'Thank you; I promise you that you shall never be sorry for it.' Oh, he is good—and strong. I think I do love him. If you'd seen the look in his eyes! It touched me, and made me want to cry. I think if he had kissed me then, I shouldn't have minded."
"Hasn't he kissed you at all?" Caroline asked. The heaviness of heart which the beginning of the story had brought her had lightened. It would not have been told her in just that way if Beatrix had come to her to ask her help in extricating herself from an impossible position. And yet she had been inclined to think that it had been all a mistake, and had better be ended, for the sake of Beatrix's happiness.
"I'm coming to that, darling. You must let me tell it to you all as it happened."