“Not just yet.”
She looked at him a moment in surprise, for there was something peculiar in his manner. She felt half angry with him for sitting so still, and speaking so briefly, while she herself was trembling with delight. “Have you told Miss Valery?” He shook his head. “Ah, then, go at once and tell her, so happy as she will be! Do go.”
“Presently. Come and sit down here. I want to talk to you, Agatha.”
She let him place her by his side. He took her hands, and regarded her earnestly.
“Do you remember what day this was to have been?”
“Was to have been?” she repeated, and instinctively guessed what he had doubtless come to say. Her heart began to beat violently, and her eyes dropped in confusion.
“I say 'was,' because, if you desire it, it shall not be. I see the very idea is a relief to you. I saw it in your sudden joy.”
Agatha was amazed—she had till this moment never thought of such a thing. Mr. Harper's whole manner of speech and proceeding was so very incomprehensible—like a lover's—that she told the entire truth in simply saying “that she did not understand him.”
“Let me repeat it in plainer words.” But the plainer words would not come; after one or two vain efforts, he sat with averted face, speechless. At last he said abruptly, “Agatha, do you wish to defer our marriage?”
As he spoke, his grasp of her hand was so fierce that it positively hurt her. “Oh, let me go—you are not kind,” she cried, shrinking from the pain, which he did not even perceive he had inflicted—so strange a mood was upon him. He loosed her hand at once, and stood up before her, speaking vehemently.