"Daisy, Daisy," interrupted Paul, "what are you saying?"
"Simply the truth; I am speaking out what we both of us know to be true. There is no good shilly-shallying any longer this way, Paul Douglas; we are neither of us so very childlike, we are both of us out of our teens, and we live in a world where Strephon and Daphne will find themselves horribly out of place."
There was a pause for a few moments, and then Paul said in a low voice:
"You must pardon me, Daisy, if I don't answer you straight at once and to the purpose. It is rather a facer for a fellow who has gone away and left a girl, as he imagines, very much attached to him, and certainly most loving and affectionate in her words and manner, to find her, on his return, perfectly changed, and talking about being practical and rational, and that kind of thing. I daresay I was a fool; I daresay you thought I was giving myself airs when I talked about my family, and kept in this secluded part of the Park in order that we might not run the risk of meeting anybody I knew. God knows I didn't intend so, child; God knows I would have done nothing that I thought could have wounded your feelings in the very slightest degree. You say that if I had spoken to you before I left town about marrying you, matters would have stood differently. The truth is, until I went out of town, until I was far away from you and knew I was beyond your reach, until I felt that never-ceasing want of your society and companionship, that ever-present desire to hear your voice and take your hand and look into your darling eyes, I did not know how much I was in love with you. I know it now, Daisy, I feel it all now, and the idea of having to pass the remainder of my life without you drives me mad. You won't let it come to this, Daisy--oh, my own darling one, you won't let it come to this!"
His voice trembled as he spoke these last words, and he was strangely agitated. There was real pity, and perhaps a little look of love, in Daisy's eyes, but she only said:
"My dear Paul, sooner or later it must come to this. Even were there no other reasons, it would be impossible for me to accept an offer of marriage which it might be truly said I have literally wrung from you. If you love me very much--there, you need not protest; we will allow that to pass, and take it for granted that you do--you are desperately spooney upon me, as the phrase is, Paul; but how long will you continue in that state? and when the first force of your passion is spent and past, you will find yourself tied to a wife who, as you will not fail to say to yourself--you don't think so now, but there is no doubt about it--insisted on your marrying her."
"I should not have been cad enough to think any such thing!" cried Paul.
"You would always be too much of a gentleman to say it, I know," said Daisy, "but you could not help thinking it; and the mere knowledge that you thought it would distress me beyond measure. No, Paul, it would not do; depend upon it, it would not do."
"Do you mean to tell me, then," said Paul, in a trembling voice, "that you have finally decided in this matter?"
"I have."