"How could I? Think what a deception you practiced on me when sending that miserable picture. I confess I abhor ugliness. And then, your own conditions,—what could I do but abide by them?"
"There are certain times when a woman does not altogether care about being taken so completely at her word."
"But that was not one of them." Hastily. "I do not believe you would have wished to live with a man you neither knew nor cared for."
"Perhaps not." Laughing. "Sometimes I hardly know myself what it is I do want. But are we not very well as we are? I dare say, had we been living together for the past three years, we should now dislike each other as cordially as—as do Maud Darley and her husband."
"Impossible! Maud Darley is one person, you are quite another; while I—well"—with a smile—"I honestly confess I fancy myself rather more than poor Henry Darley."
"He certainly is plain," says Cecil, pensively, "and—he snores,—two great points against him, Yes, on consideration, you are an improvement on Henry Darley." Then, with a sudden change of tone, she says, "Does all this mean that you love me?"
"Yes I confess it, Cecil," answers he, gravely, earnestly. "I love you as I never believed it possible I should love a woman. I am twenty-nine, and—think me cold if you will—but up to this I never yet saw the woman I wanted for my wife except you."
"Then you ought to consider yourself the happiest man alive, because you have the thing you crave. As you reminded me just now, I am yours until death us do part."
"Not all I crave, not the best part of you, your heart," replies he, tenderly. "No man loving as I do, could be contented with a part."
"Oh, it is too absurd," says Cecil, with a little aggravating shake of the head. "In love with your own wife in this prosaic nineteenth century! It savors of the ridiculous. Such mistaken feeling has been tabooed long ago. Conquer it; conquer it."