“I would rather talk of you, if you would let me,” said he, with much significance of voice and manner. “Say would you like to have me for your neighbor?”
“It would be a pleasant exchange for Major M'Cormick,” said she, laughing.
“I want you to be serious now. What I am asking you interests me too deeply to jest over.”
“First of all, is the project a serious one?”
“It is.”
“Next, why ask advice from one as inexperienced as I am?”
“Because it is not counsel I ask,—it is something more. Don't look surprised, and, above all, don't look angry, but listen to me. What I have said now, and what more I would say, might more properly have been uttered when we had known each other longer; but there are emergencies in life which give no time for slow approaches, and there are men, too, that they suit not. Imagine such now before you,—I mean, both the moment and the man. Imagine one who has gone through a great deal in life, seen, heard, and felt much, and yet never till now, never till this very morning, understood what it was to know one whose least word or passing look was more to him than ambition, higher than all the rewards of glory.”
“We never met till yesterday,” said she, calmly.
“True; and if we part to-morrow, it will be forever. I feel too painfully,” added he, with more eagerness, “how I compromise all that I value by an avowal abrupt and rash as this is; but I have had no choice. I have been offered the command of a native force in India, and must give my answer at once. With hope—the very faintest, so that it be hope—I will refuse. Remember I want no pledge, no promise; all I entreat is that you will regard me as one who seeks to win your favor. Let time do the rest.”
“I do not think I ought to do this—I do not know if you should ask it.”