It was impossible for him to refrain from kissing her then; but she only suffered him to touch her hands, and then, starting up, waved him aside.
"No, no! You must not," she exclaimed. "I shall not go back on my word. I shall stick to my purpose. You may come to see me sometimes if you like, but I shall promise nothing."
He looked despairingly at her as she stood there, tall, erect, a very queen of beauty, with brilliantly coloured cheeks, shining blue eyes, and golden hair like an aureole above her small beautifully shaped head.
"Oh, my dear, you cannot earn money for me!" he cried; "I would never touch it. Do dismiss the idea from your mind! What I want is you, to be my own darling wife. We might be ever so happy--even if we are poor."
"I don't want you to be poor, Bernard," she rejoined. "If you are it will be my father who has made you so, and I could not endure to see it. Now, don't let us waste time in arguing about that again. I shall continue my work here: for you have made it plain to me that it is all right. You may come to see me occasionally, as I said----"
"What do you think if I were to throw up my tutorship--it is badly paid--and come daily to assist you with your work? It would be awfully jolly working together, and I could see that your lads did their share, instead of wasting their time in chattering about what they do not understand."
But Doris would not hear of that arrangement being made. The work might do for her, but she revolted mentally from the idea of her Bernard pursuing a calling which the artist had declared to be so utterly and radically wrong: and it was like her inconsequent, girlish way of reasoning not to see that what was right for one was right for the other, and vice versa.
However, when Bernard went away, she felt ever so much happier than she did when he arrived. He loved her and she loved him: that was the chief thing; all else was of secondary consideration. He approved of, and saw no harm in her occupation--could he by any possibility see any harm in anything that she did?--and that was healing balm to her hurt, despondent feelings.
"He is very nice and sensible, is Bernard," she said to herself, last thing that night, as she laid her head on her pillow; "he is very different from poor Alice's despotic brother. Now, I like a man I can convince even against his will--and Bernard does love me in spite of everything." She fell asleep thinking about him, and dreamt that they were again in the Temperate House, looking at the chrysanthemums, and she was not trying to send him away as she did before, but, on the contrary, her hand rested within his arm, which held it tightly.
CHAPTER XV.