He leaned towards her. "I believe I can teach you," he said, "if you will let me try."
She slipped a shy hand into his. "But you won't ask me to marry you for a long while yet, will you?" she said pleadingly.
"Not until you have quite made up your mind to be engaged to me," said
Mordaunt.
She looked at him quickly. "No, not then either. Not—not till I say you may."
He laughed a little; but there was something very protecting, infinitely reassuring, in his grasp. "And if I accept that condition," he said—"it's a very despotic one, by the way—but if I accept it, may I consider that you are engaged to me?"
Chris hesitated.
"Not if I tell you that I love you," he said, "that I want you more than anything else in life, that I would give the soul out of my body to make you happy?"
His voice was sunk very low. There was more of restraint than emotion in his utterance. He spoke as a man who knows himself to be upon holy ground.
And Chris was awed. The very quietness of the man made her tremble. She knew instinctively that here was something colossal, something that dominated her, albeit half against her will.
She closed her fingers very tightly upon his hand, but she said nothing.