"No, don't speak—not yet. I know what you were going to say. You were going to say that it is impossible, that we only met a few days ago, that we are strangers. Yes, I know that is what you would say. But it is of no use to say that. Do you think people can get to love by knowing each other a certain number of months—years? Margaret, I think I loved you when I saw you in the village the first time; I know I loved you when you sat by my side in the garden and let me put the rose in your dress! Only a few days ago! Why, it seems years to me—it is years! Oh, Margaret, don't be hard and cruel, and you can be so hard, so cruel! See here; I lay all my life at your feet! It's a bad lot, I know! Why, I told you so, didn't I? But—but I'll change all that! You shall see! Let me go on loving you; let me hope that, some day, you'll try and love me a little in return, and I'll turn over a new leaf! I can never be worthy of you. Oh, I know that. Why, where is there a man in all the world who could be worthy to touch the edge of your dress?" and as he spoke he raised her skirt to his lips, and far from touching herself as his lips were, she seemed to feel them. "But every day, every hour, if you will let me love you, I'll tell myself that I'm of some consequence to someone in the world, and that will keep me straight! Margaret—" he paused and crept a little nearer—"Margaret, you are an angel, and I am a—well, just the other thing; but I ask you to be my guardian angel! Dear, if you knew how I love you! I cannot get your face from before my eyes; every word you have uttered sings in my heart! I am bewitched, bewitched! And—and all I can say is, let me love you all my life, and try and love me a little!"
Pale, trembling, Margaret listened, her eyes downcast, her hands clasped tightly in her lap.
It was all so new, so strange, so unexpected that her heart throbbed and her brain whirled. His words, in their passionate assertion and entreaty, seemed to penetrate to her soul, and with it all a sense of ineffable joy and delight suffused her whole being and ran through every vein.
"You won't speak to me?" he said, with a quick sigh that was almost like a sob. "I see how it is! I am not fit; yes, I know! And I have offended you worse than I did the other morning. I—I am a fool, and I have destroyed my only chance! I meant to be so quiet and—and gentle with you, but I can't teach myself to keep quiet and soft-spoken when my heart is all on fire, and I long to clasp you in my arms and hear you tell me that you love me! Margaret, my good angel! Margaret, won't you say one little word to me? Not to send me away, but to tell me that, bad as I am, you will—well, think a little kindly of me!"
He had drawn himself still closer, so that his face almost touched the lace of her sleeves, and she could see the quiver of his lips under the thick mustache.
He waited a moment, then his head drooped.
"All right," he said; "don't speak. I see how it is. No, I'd rather you didn't speak. I might have known that you wouldn't listen to me, that you wouldn't give me any kind of hope. Good Lord, why should you? Well, I'll take myself off; I'll get out of your sight."
He had raised himself, but Margaret's hand stole out and fell, light as a feather, on his arm.
He seized it as a man dying of thirst in the desert seizes the cup of water that will save him, and covered it with hot passionate kisses.
"No, no!" she breathed, trying to draw it away. "You—you have unnerved me, Lord Leyton!"