“You did indeed. You were perfectly open with me. You let me see all that part of you which we try to keep concealed and fancy we are concealing—all that one really feels and wishes and thinks as distinguished from what one fancies he ought to feel and wish and think.”
“I wonder that you cared, after a glance behind that curtain.”
“Oh, but I like what is behind that curtain best of all. The very human things are there. They make me feel so at home.”
Dinner was announced and it was not until the second course that he had a chance to resume. Then he began as if there had been no interval:
“You said—”
Marian laughed and looked at him—a flash of her luminous blue-green eyes—and was looking away again with her usual expression. “You needn’t tell me the rest. It doesn’t matter what I said. I’ve had you with me wherever I went. You never doubted my—my caring, did you?”
“No. I couldn’t doubt you. If you were the sort of woman a man could doubt, you wouldn’t be the sort of woman I could love. And you know it isn’t vanity that makes me sure. I often wonder how you happened to care for such a—but I must not attack any one whom you like so well. No, I knew you cared by the same instinct that makes you know that I care for you.”
“But why did you come?”
“Because I have won a position for myself, have enough to enable us to live without eternally fretting over money-matters. I feel that I have the right to come. And then I could not be interested to live on, without you; and I’m willing to face, willing to have you face, whatever may come to us through me. I know that you and I together——”
“Not now—don’t—please.” Marian was pale and she was obviously under a great strain. “You see, you knew all about this. But I didn’t until you looked at me when Jessie brought you. It makes me—happy—I am so happy. But I must—I can’t control myself here.” She leaned over as if her napkin had slipped to the floor. “I love you,” she murmured.