The blood rushed to Doris’s face, then left it white to the lips.
She drew her eyes away from his slowly and sat mute and motionless.
“I love you!” he said, bending a little nearer to her, the words fraught with the intensity—and the truth—of a man’s passion. “I love you with all my heart and soul!” He drew a long breath. “That is why I wrote to you, that is what I had to say to you—wait a moment, I know what you are going to say—perhaps you are going to laugh. For Heaven’s sake, don’t, for this is a serious business for me!”
She made a slight gesture of negation.
“No, forgive me; I was wrong! You would not laugh! But I know what you will say—that I have only seen you a few times, that I have only spoken to you on two occasions. Well, I know. Do you think I haven’t told myself all that? I have, a hundred times; but it doesn’t alter the fact. I do love you. I know that, and that’s about all I know of it.” His deep, musical voice was tremulous for a moment, but he mastered it. “And I don’t wonder at it! Where is the man with half-a-heart in his bosom who wouldn’t love you! I have never seen any one so beautiful—half so beautiful!”
She moved her hand as if to silence him, but he went on.
“And I’ve sat for hours, fascinated—feeling my heart drawn out of me by your face, your voice! Why, look how you move the rest of the people at the theatre, and think what it must mean to me, who loved you the very first time I saw you! Ah, Miss Marlowe—Doris—let me call you Doris for once!—if I could only tell you how dearly and truly and passionately I love you! But I can’t. I know it’s no use. Who am I that you should feel anything but amusement——”
“Do not say that,” she said, in a low voice, almost inaudible, indeed.
“You are as beautiful as an angel, and as clever—why, you are famous already, and I”—he laughed with self-scorn—“I’m just an ordinary fool of a fellow. Of course, there is no hope for me, and yet somehow I felt that I must tell you. You won’t laugh, I know. You’ll tell me that I’m very foolish, and that we mustn’t meet again—and—and all that”—he rose, but sank down again, and touched her arm reverently—“and you’ll send me away and—and—perhaps forget all about me in a week or two. While I—well—” he pushed the short, crisp hair from his brow with an impatient gesture—“well, I shall get over it in time. No!” he said, simply, passionately, “I shall never forget you. If I live to be a hundred I shall never forget the other day when I opened my eyes and saw you bending over me, or those next two nights when I looked at you in the theatre! I shall never forget, nor cease to love you! I know it as surely as I stand here!”
He rose and thrust his hands in his pockets, and looked down at her, his handsome face set hard, his eyes dwelling upon her with the hungry look of the man who loves and yet does not hope.