“I thank you for what you have done, and now let’s go to the others,” quickly interposed the girl. But one effort to rest her weight upon her foot dissuaded her from any further immediate endeavor, and so she sought, unsuccessfully, to turn the conversation in other directions.
“Do you know,” he repeated, “that I would like to render such service that you would never wish for any other servitor?”
“Please,” said Dorothy, “let’s talk about the wonderful view of sea and forest and the heaven above.”
“I am intense in my admiration of all that is beautiful, and above all, permit me to say that I admire the beautiful Dorothy.” She raised her hand in protest, but he continued. “May I quote for you a little gem that is aptly expressive of my sentiments?”
“Well,” laughed Dorothy, quizzically looking at her foot, “I am at your mercy.”
The man by her side did not venture to touch her hand, which rested on the bench almost beside his own, but, with earnest intensity of his manner, he leaned forward and looked longingly, nay lovingly, into her eyes till they fell before his gaze. His face, handsome and animated, his voice musical and well modulated. Every word was spoken slowly as if to admit of certain assimilation.
“May my Heaven be
A rosary bower,
With one sweet angel,
And that one—Thee!”
There was a moment’s pause.
“Miss Calvert,” he went on, “I would that my heaven might begin on earth. It will, if you will be mine.”
Dorothy, like all other girls, under similar circumstances, had felt for a moment the compliment of a man’s love, then all at once she recalled the conversation between Alfy and her quondam lover, and with her quick intuition, she had recognized her possible inheritance as the probable cause of Mr. Dauntrey’s sudden declaration. Still she would not be unkind.