"Don't go on," interrupts he, hastily. "You are going to say something unkind, and I won't listen to it. I know it by your eyes. Darling, why are you so cruel to me? Surely you must care for me, be it ever such a little. To think otherwise would—— But I will not think it. Molly,"—with increasing fervor,—"say you will marry me."
"But indeed I can't," exclaims Miss Massereene, retreating a step or two, and glancing at him furtively from under her long lashes. "At least"—relenting a little, as she sees his face change and whiten at her words—"not yet. It is all so sudden, so unexpected; and you forget I am not accustomed to this sort of thing. Now, the curates"—with an irrepressible smile—"never went on like this: they always behaved modestly and with such propriety."
"'The curates!' What do they know about it?" returns this young man, most unjustly. "Do you suppose I love you like a curate?"
"And yet, when all is told, I suppose a curate is a man," says Molly, uncertainly, as one doubtful of the truth of her assertion, "and a well-behaved one, too. Now, you are quite different; and you have known me such a little time."
"What has time to do with it? The beginning and the ending of the whole matter is this: I love you!"
He is holding her hands and gazing down into her face with all his heart in his eyes, waiting for her next words,—may they not decide his fate?—while she is feeling nothing in the world but a mad desire to break into laughter,—a desire that arises half from nervousness, half from an irrepressible longing to destroy the solemnity of the scene.
"A pinch for stale news," says she, at last, with a frivolity most unworthy of the occasion, but in the softest, merriest whisper.
They are both young. The laugh is contagious. After a moment's struggle with his dignity, he echoes it.
"You can jest," says he: "surely that is a good sign. If you were going to refuse me you would not laugh. Beloved,"—taking her into his fond arms again,—"say one little word to make me happy."
"Will any little word do? Long ago, in the dark ages when I was a child, I remember being asked a riddle à propos of short words. I will ask it to you now. What three letters contain everything in the world? Guess."