Dexter gazed at her, but without moving. "You are mistaken," he said, gravely. "I do love you."
"Since when?" asked the sweet voice, with a touch of sarcasm. Anne was now using the powers of concealment which nature gives to all women, even the youngest, as a defense. Mr. Dexter should know nothing, should not be vouchsafed even a glimpse, of her inner feelings; she would simply refuse him, as girls did in books. And she tried to think what they said.
But the man opposite her was not like a man in a book. "Since six o'clock this evening," he answered, quietly.
Anne looked at him in wonder.
"Do you wish to hear the whole?" he asked.
"No; it is nothing to me. Since you only began at six, probably you can stop at twelve," she answered, still with her girlish scorn perceptible in her voice.
But Dexter paid no attention to her sarcasm. "I will tell you the whole when you are my wife," he said. "Let it suffice now that at the hour named I became aware of the worthlessness and faithlessness of women; and—I speak God's truth, Anne—even at that bitter moment I fell back upon the thought of you as a safeguard—a safeguard against total disbelief in the possibility of woman's fidelity. I knew then that I had revered you with my better self all the while—that, young as you are, I had believed in you. I believe in you now. Be my wife; and from this instant I will devote all the love in me—and I have more than you think—to you alone." He had crossed the room, and was standing beside her.
Anne felt at once the touch of real feeling. "I am very sorry," she said, gently, looking up into his face. "I should have said it at first, but that I did not think you were in earnest until now. I am engaged, Mr. Dexter; I was engaged before I came here."
"But," said Dexter, "Miss Vanhorn—"
"Yes, I know. Grandaunt does not approve of it, and will not countenance it. But that, of course, makes no difference."