“Jack,” she said, lowering her voice almost to a whisper, “I want you to marry me privately—quite in secret—that’s what I mean. Not a human being must know, but you and I and the clergyman.”
John Ralston looked into her face in thunder-struck astonishment. It is doubtful whether anything natural or supernatural could have brought such a look into his eyes. Katharine smiled, for the idea had long been familiar to her.
“Confess that you were not prepared for that!” she said. “But you’ve confessed it already.”
“Well—hardly for that—no.”
The look of surprise in his face gradually changed into one of wondering curiosity, and his brows knit themselves into a sort of puzzled frown, as though he were trying to solve a difficult problem.
“You see why I didn’t want you to promise anything rashly,” said Katharine. “You couldn’t possibly foresee what I was going to ask any more than you can understand why I ask it. Could you?”
“No. Of course not. Who could?”
“I’m not going to ask any one else to, you may be sure. In the first place, do you think it wrong?”
“Wrong? That depends—there are so many things—” he hesitated.
“Say what you think, Jack. I want to know just what you think.”