"To love me!" replies he, with infinite sadness in look and tone.
"Yes," says Joyce slowly, and then again meditatively, "yes." She lifts her eyes presently and regards him strangely. "And if all my trying should not succeed? If I never learn to love you?"
"Why, then it is all over. This hope of mine is at an end," say he, so calmly, yet with such deep melancholy, such sad foreboding, that her heart is touched.
"Oh! it is a hope of mine too," says she quickly. "If it were not would I listen to you to-day? But you must not be so downhearted; let the worst come to the worst, you will be as well off as you are at this instant."
He shakes his head.
"Does hope count for nothing, then?"
"You would compel me to love you," says she, growing the more vexed as she grows the more sorry for him. "Would you have me marry you even if I did not love you?" Her soft eyes have filled with tears, there is a suspicion of reproach in her voice.
"No. I suppose not."
He half turns away from her. At this moment a sense of despair falls on him. She will never care for him, never, never. This proposed probation is but a mournful farce, a sorry clinging to a hope that is built on sand. When in the future she marries, as so surely she will, he will not be her husband. Why not give in at once? Why fight with the impossible? Why not break all links (frail as they are sweet), and let her go her way, and he his, while yet there is time? To falter is to court destruction.
Then all at once a passionate reaction sets in. Joyce, looking at him, sees the light of battle, the warmth of love the unconquerable, spring into his eyes. No, he will not cave in! He will resist to the last! dispute every inch of the ground, and if finally only defeat is to crown his efforts still——And why should defeat be his? Be it Beauclerk or another, whoever declares himself his rival shall find him a formidable enemy to overcome.