"So then I—I mean to tell you the exact truth, you know, as well as I can. I began to think whether I liked you very much."
"Well, Rhoda?"
There was a rather long silence.
"Well, I thought—yes, I did."
He clasped his arms round her with a sudden impetuous movement, but she held him off with her two hands on his shoulders. "No, but please listen! I did love somebody else once very much. Of course we were very young, and it was nonsense. But I did wrong in being secret, and keeping it from father. And I never want to be secret any more. And—though I do like you very much, and—and—I should be very sorry if you went away—yet it isn't quite the same that I felt before. That is the truth as well as I can say it, and I am very grateful to you for thinking so well of me."
He drew the young head with its soft shining chestnut curls down on to his breast, and pressed his lips to her cheek.
"Now you are mine, my very own—are you not, Rhoda?"
"Yes; if you like, Mr. Diamond."
Matthew Diamond had been successful in his wooing, after feeling very doubtful of success. And he should naturally have been elated in proportion to his previous trepidation. And he was happy, of course; yet scarcely with the fulness of joyful triumph he had promised himself if pretty Rhoda should incline her ear to his suit. There was a subtle flavour of disappointment in it all. Rhoda had behaved very well, very honestly, in making that effort to be quite clear and candid about her feelings. It was a great thing to be able to feel perfect confidence in the woman who was to be his companion for life. And as to her loving him with the same fervour he felt towards her, that was not to be expected. He never had expected that. She was gentle, sweet, modest, thoroughly feminine, and exquisitely pretty. She was willing to give herself to him, and would doubtless be a true and affectionate wife. He held her slight waist in his arm, and her head rested confidingly on his bosom. Of course he was very happy. Only—if only Rhoda were not quite so silent and cold; if she would say one little word of tenderness, or even nestle herself fondly against his shoulder without speaking!
Some such thoughts were vaguely flitting through Diamond's mind when Rhoda raised her head, and, emboldened by the gathering dusk, looked up into his face and said, "You know it cannot be unless father consents."