“That is true,” said George, touched by the girl’s tone. “Ella, why won’t you marry me? Only two women in all my life have ever woke any strong feeling in me: until this evening I could have said ‘only one’—a little wild girl whose influence I dread, though I have only met her twice. You will think me a weak fool, perhaps, but a woman, however clever she may be, cannot in such a case judge a man. There are influences at work in a man’s coarser nature that no sweet and innocent girl could understand. To-night you have given me the first glimpse I have ever been able to catch into the depths of your warm heart and your noble mind; I see in you the type of all that is best in women; and I know that if you would have me all that is best in me would grow and expand until I might in time be worthy of the affection of a good woman. Ella, will you try me?”
The girl was looking away from him, still sitting very upright, and drinking in his words with an intent expression on her face. At last she turned her head slowly, and her eyes, mournful and earnest, gazed full into those of the young man, who had poured out his appeal with passionate excitement, and now sat, flushed and eager, awaiting her answer.
“Can you wait for my reply till to-morrow?” she asked, with a curiously searching expression.
“Why to-morrow? What would you know to-morrow that you don’t know to-night?”
“You are going to see the girl to-night!” said Ella, with a sudden inspiration.
“If you will not have me—yes. It is a promise. If you, now that you know everything, will take me, I hold myself absolved from a promise to another woman, and before Heaven I swear that you will have nothing more to fear; I will never see her again. Only a woman can drive another woman out of a man’s head. Ella, no one has ever crept so near to my heart as you. Will you come right in?”
If she had not cared for him so much, she would have said yes. But the tenderness she had long secretly felt, without owning it to herself, for the handsome young officer, made her timid. If she were to marry him, she, with the fierce depths of unsuspected passion she felt stirring at her heart, would adore him, would be at his mercy, bereft of the shield of sarcasm and reserve with which she could hide her weakness now. She knew that the feeling which brought him to her was not so strong as, though it was probably better than, that which impelled him away. She dared not risk so much on a single stroke. Yearning, doubt, fear, resolution, all passed so quickly through her mind that she had kept him waiting for his reply very few moments when she rose, and with a face as still and set as if she had not for a moment wavered, she said:
“I can give you no answer now. If you are in the same mind a month hence, ask me again.”
George gave a hard laugh as he too rose.
“It will be too late,” he said coldly. “But I thank you for hearing me. Good-night.”