"I told her in the message that you are with us," Louise said to him. "And of course she shall know, when I see her, that Laura and I might have had to remain in England indefinitely had it not been for you."
"There is something that I want your sanction to tell your mother when I see her," said Blythe as they set out for a stroll on the long deck.
"Yes?" she said, with a quick sidewise glance at him. She understood perfectly well what he meant; had, indeed, been waiting for him to assume that direction; but women are not expected to make such admissions.
"I think you will be ready to admit that I have striven to practise self-restraint," said Blythe, with a smile in which there was a touch of nervousness. "But there is a point beyond which I cannot go. Are you to tell your mother that I have asked you to marry me, or am I to tell her when I see her?"
"Have you asked me that?" inquired Louise, a little mischievously; but she asked the question in order to gain time.
Blythe laughed in self-deprecation.
"If I have been guilty of so stupid an omission, I can rectify it by asking you now?" he said; and Louise noticed the flush that overspread his features. "I have, I know, a habit of taking too much for granted. But I really supposed you knew that my life is bound up in yours, Louise."
"And mine in yours," she replied with a perfect candor that thrilled him. "If I did not love you dearly—and I do—perhaps I should not so keenly feel that I would be doing you an injustice to marry you."
Blythe could scarcely credit his ears. Her first words had set him to soaring, but, when she had finished, he was conscious of as stunned a feeling as if he had received a physical blow. Involuntarily he stood stock still and faced her; but the need to keep moving in order not to block the progress of the other deck pedestrians quickly flashed upon him. When he moved forward again at her side, however, listening to her quiet, earnest words, he was conscious, for a while, of a certain numbness, almost approaching languor, which he found it difficult to throw off.
Louise, more reservedly but with no lack of clearness, touched upon the points which she had made in going over the same ground with Laura. Surprised as he was, Blythe, whose mind had never been visited by any of the considerations which she named, nevertheless had an immediate and acute understanding of the ordeal through which the girl must be passing in thus presenting her analysis of the situation to him.