"I hope I have, if you're not really mistaken about my being the man you think. But I'll go and see about our wedding;" and I rose.
"Wait a bit," she cried, flustered and perplexed. "I didn't expect you to—to give in quite so—quite like this," she added, laughing nervously. "It isn't a bit like I was led—what I expected. Do you mean really and truly that you're ready to marry me straight off like this?"
With all the earnestness I could command I gave her the assurance. "I pledge you my sacred word of honour that if I've treated you as you say I'll marry you as soon as it can be done." A perfectly safe and sincere pledge.
This frightened her. The affair had taken a much more serious turn than she had expected. "You—you've taken my breath away almost," was how she put it; and she sat twisting and untwisting her fingers nervously, not in the least seeing how to meet the unexpected difficulty. "I must have time to think it over," she said at length.
"Why?"
"Oh, I don't know; but it's—it's so sudden."
"There's, the child, Anna," I reminded her again.
"Oh, bother the child. I mean I'm thinking of myself." This hurriedly, as she turned to stare out of the window. "Do you know the sort of life I've been living?" she asked in a low voice without looking round.
"Whatever it is, it must be my fault, and I don't care what you've been doing. I drove you to it. There's our child, remember."
There was another long silence as she stood at the window. Her laboured breathing, the clenched hands, and spasmodic movements of her shoulders evidenced some great agitation. If it was mere acting she was a far better actress than she had yet shown herself. And the change in her looks when at last she turned to me proved her emotion to be genuine.