‘I feel as you said in your letter, Frank. There is something tragic in it. It will be with me for ever. All the future will arrange itself round that little ring.’
‘Are you afraid of it?’
‘Afraid!’ her grey glove rested for an instant upon the back of his hand. ‘I couldn’t be afraid of anything if you were with me. It is really extraordinary, for by nature I am so easily frightened. But if I were with you in a railway accident or anywhere, it would be just the same. You see I become for the time part of you, as it were, and you are brave enough for two.’
‘I don’t profess to be so brave as all that,’ said Frank. ‘I expect I have as many nerves as my neighbours.’
Maude’s grey toque nodded up and down. ‘I know all about that,’ said she.
‘You have such a false idea of me. It makes me happy at the time and miserable afterwards, for I feel such a rank impostor. You imagine me to be a hero, and a genius, and all sorts of things, while I know that I am about as ordinary a young fellow as walks the streets of London, and no more worthy of you than—well, than any one else is.’
She laughed with shining eyes.
‘I like to hear you talk like that,’ said she. ‘That is just what is so beautiful about you.’
It is hopeless to prove that you are not a hero when your disclaimers are themselves taken as a proof of heroism. Frank shrugged his shoulders.
‘I only hope you’ll find me out gradually and not suddenly,’ said he. ‘Now, Maude, we have all day and all London before us. What shall we do? I want you to choose.’