"Yes; it's some little while ago, now. Mrs. Dobbs spoke very straightforward, and very kind, too; but I'm bound to say she did not give me any encouragement."
May stared at him in a kind of fascination. She could not remove her eyes from his face. And she began to perceive a dreadful clear-sightedness dawning above the confusion of her thoughts.
Mr. Bragg was not looking at her. He was leaning a little forward, with his arms resting on his knees, and his hands loosely clasped together. He went on speaking in a ruminating way; sometimes emphasizing his phrase by a slight movement from the wrist of his clasped hands, and as if he were, with some difficulty, reading off the words he was uttering from the Oriental rug at his feet.
"You see, Miss Cheffington, of course I'm aware there's a great difference in years. But that's not the biggest difference in reality. I don't believe myself that I'm so very much older in some ways than I was at five-and-twenty. I was always a steady kind of a chap, and I never had much to say for myself—never was what you might call lively, you know."
May sat spell-bound; looking at him fixedly, and with that dawn of clear-sightedness rapidly illumining many things, to her unspeakable consternation.
"No; it isn't the years that make the biggest difference. I'm below you in education, of course, Miss Cheffington, and in a deal besides, no doubt. But I can be trusted to mean all I say—though I'm not able to say all I mean, by a long chalk."
As he said this he raised his eyes for the first time, and looked at her. She was still regarding him with the same fascinated, almost helpless, gaze. But when she met his clear, honest, grey eyes, with a wistful expression in them which was pathetically contrasted with the massive strength of his head and face, she was suddenly inspired to say—
"Please, Mr. Bragg, will you hear me? I want to tell you something before you—before you say any more. I think you are my friend, and if you don't mind, I should like to tell you a secret. May I?"
He nodded, keeping his eyes on her now steadily.
"Well, I—I hope you will forgive me for troubling you with my confidence. I know you will respect it. If I had not such a high esteem and regard for you I—I could not say it." She stopped an instant, there was a choking feeling in her throat. She paused, mastered it, and went on. "I have promised to marry some one whom I love very much, and no one knows about it but Granny."