“O Arthur!” she cried. “Do you really mean it? Are you sure it is not out of pity that you say this? Do you love me after all? Would you really like me a little to be your wife?”
“If you are not my wife, I shall never have one,” he replied. “You have spoiled all other women for me.”
Then she let him take her in his arms, and as his lips touched hers for the first time he faintly wondered if it were possible he had ever dreamed of any other woman but Maud Elliott as his wife. After she had laughed and cried awhile, she said:
“How was it that you never let me see you cared for me? You never showed it.”
“I tried not to,” he replied; “and I would not have shown it to-night, if I could have helped it. I tried to get away without betraying my secret, but I could not.” Then he told her that when he found he had fallen in love with her, he was almost angry with himself. He was so proud of their friendship that a mere love affair seemed cheap and common beside it. Any girl would do to fall in love with; but there was not, he was sure, another in America capable of bearing her part in such a rare and delicate companionship as theirs. He was determined to keep up their noble game of friendship as long as might be.
Afterward, during the evening, he boasted himself to her not a little of the self-control he had shown in hiding his passion so long, a feat the merit of which perhaps she did not adequately appreciate.
“Many a time in the last month or two when you have been saying good-by to me of an evening, with your hand in mine, the temptation has been almost more than I could withstand to seize you in my arms. It was all the harder, you see, because I fancied you would not be very angry if I did. In fact, you once gave me to understand as much in pretty plain language, if I remember rightly. Possibly you may recall the conversation. You took the leading part in it, I believe.”
Maud had bent her head so low that he could not see her face. It was very cruel in him, but he deliberately took her chin in his hands, and gently but firmly turned her face up to his. Then, as he kissed the shamed eyes and furiously blushing cheeks, he dropped the tone of banter and said, with moist eyes, in a voice of solemn tenderness:—
“My brave darling, with all my life I will thank you for the words you spoke that night. But for them I might have missed the wife God meant for me.” for me.”