“And you believe, after all, that passion of devotion—after defying all Europe for her sake—that he loved Queen Jane the best?”
“I have not thought much about the matter, but from rapidly thinking over all I remember of the subject, I should say, yes, he cared most for Jane.”
It pleased her to read a hidden meaning in his words of which he was most entirely unconscious. He had for the moment even forgotten how the historical characters were distributed; but Clarice Severn gathered up all these words, and placed them in her heart; she pondered over them, and they made for a few short days the music of her life.
The brilliant evening came to an end, and left three people more happy than words of mine could tell. Lady Hermione, with her lover’s first kiss warm on her lips, his passionate words lingering in her ears, her heart warm with the remembrance of all he had said to her, and how dearly he loved her; Sir Ronald, happy because he believed the bonnie bright bird he had wooed so long would flutter into his hand; Clarice, happy under a false impression, and because she loved Sir Ronald so well that she believed that which she should only have hoped.
“I will lose no time,” said Sir Ronald to himself. “To-morrow I will ask her that most honest of all questions: ‘Will you be my wife?’”
But Sir Ronald found that to propose and to accomplish a deed was very different. Although he was remaining at Leeholme until evening he found no opportunity of saying one word to Lady Hermione; there were so many guests and her attention was so incessantly occupied. There were always young girls eagerly talking to her, or gentlemen paying her compliments, and, as the daughter of the house, she was engaged in entertaining visitors. In vain Sir Ronald watched and waited. He only asked five minutes, but even that short space of time was quite out of his reach.
He sat by her side during lunch, but even the most ardent of lovers could not possibly make an offer of marriage over cold chicken and lobster salad. There was a little assertion of independence, too, on her part. She knew what was coming just as a wild, bright forest bird knows its fate when the net is drawn around it. In vain Sir Ronald spoke to her. The lovely eyes, so frankly raised to other faces, drooped shyly from his. The sweet, proud lips that smiled so freely were mute and closed for him.
Maiden modesty and maiden pride rendered her shy, timid and silent with the lover for whom she would have laid down her sweet, young life. Sir Ronald only loved her the better for it; his heart beat with impatience.
“Let me have only one minute with her,” he said, “and I would soon change all that.”
But Sir Ronald was obliged to leave Leeholme without accomplishing his wish. He rode home through the fragrant gloaming with a heart full of love that was both happiness and pain.