“Oh, Mr. Clyde,” interrupted Margery, “you must not sit there and speak to me in such an excited way. If any one should see us they would think we were quarrelling. Let us go down to the lake; the air from the water is cool and soothing.”
Together they walked from under the shade of the tree, and so wended their way that it brought them to a mass of shrubbery which edged the water a little distance down the lake. On the other side of this shrubbery was a pretty bank, which they had seen before.
“It always tranquillizes me,” said Margery, as they stood side by side on the bank, “to look out over the water. Doesn’t it have that effect on you?”
“No!” exclaimed Clyde. “It does not tranquillize me a bit. Nothing could tranquillize me at a moment like this. Margery, I want you to know that I love you. I did not intend to tell you so soon, but what you have said makes it necessary. I have loved you ever since I met you at Peter Sadler’s, and, no matter what you say about it, I shall love you to the end of my life.”
“Even if I should send you away with one of the others?”
“Yes; no matter what you did.”
“That would be wrong,” she said.
“It doesn’t matter. Right or wrong, I’d do it.”
Margery gave him a glance from which it would have been impossible to eliminate all signs of admiration. “And if I were to arrange it otherwise,” she said, “would you undertake to keep the others away?”
There was no answer to this question, but in a minute afterwards Clyde exclaimed: “Do you think any one would dare to come near you if they saw you now?”