“I ought not to have done—said—what I did. I deserve that you should be very angry with me. Are you?”
“I don’t know,” said Esmeralda; and she wondered whether she ought to be.
“It was unpardonable,” he said. “And I do not deserve that you should listen to what I have to say. But I hope you will.”
He paused. It was not easy to say what he wanted to say. He was going to ask her to be his wife, and was going to do so without saying that he loved her. For Trafford hated a lie—even to a woman.
“Miss Chetwynde,” he said,“we have known each other a very little while; how many times is it that we have met?”
“Ten,” said Esmeralda, promptly but quietly.
“Only for a few weeks. Of me you can know scarcely anything, and what I am going to ask you will seem to you presumptuous. I did not mean to speak to you to-day—so soon, but I have done that which makes it necessary that I should speak at once. Miss Chetwynde, will you be my wife?”
Esmeralda did not drop the reins, did not remove her eyes from the horses, but the blood rushed to her face, and her lips parted as if he had deprived her of breath.
He saw that she was startled, and felt that he had been almost brutal in his suddenness.
“Do not answer me yet,” he said, “for I feel that if you were to do so, it would be ‘No;’ and I want you to say ‘Yes.’ Shall I take the horses?”