She grew deadly pale as I spoke these words, then suddenly flushed up again, but said not a word. I could perceive, however, from her heaving chest and restless manner, that no common agitation was stirring her bosom. It was cruelty to be silent, so I continued:—
“One who loves you well, Baby, dear, has asked his own heart the question, and learned that without you he has no chance of happiness; that your bright eyes are to him bluer than the deep sky above him; that your soft voice, your winning smile—and what a smile it is!—have taught him that he loves, nay, adores you! Then, dearest—what pretty fingers those are! Ah, what is this? Whence came that emerald? I never saw that ring before, Baby!”
“Oh, that,” said she, blushing deeply,—“that is a ring the foolish creature Sparks gave me a couple of days ago; but I don’t like it—I don’t intend to keep it.”
So saying, she endeavored to draw it from her finger, but in vain.
“But why, Baby, why take it off? Is it to give him the pleasure of putting it on again? There, don’t look angry; we must not fall out, surely.”
“No, Charley, if you are not vexed with me—if you are not—”
“No, no, my dear Baby; nothing of the kind. Sparks was quite right in not trusting his entire fortune to my diplomacy; but at least, he ought to have told me that he had opened the negotiation. Now, the question simply is: Do you love him? or rather, because that shortens matters: Will you accept him?”
“Love who?”
“Love whom? Why Sparks, to be sure!”
A flash of indignant surprise passed across her features, now pale as marble; her lips were slightly parted, her large full eyes were fixed upon me steadfastly, and her hand, which I had held in mine, she suddenly withdrew from my grasp.