"I know you," Vincent said, "and that is quite enough. Do you not know that I love you?"
The girl gave a start of surprise, her cheek flushed, but her eyes did not drop as she looked frankly at him.
"No, Vin," she said after a pause, "I never once thought you loved me, never once. You have not been a bit like what I thought people were when they felt like that."
"I hope not, Lucy. I was your protector then, that is to say when you were not mine. Your position has been trying enough, and I should have been a blackguard if I had made it more uncomfortable than it was by showing you that I cared for you. I have tried my best to be what people thought me—your brother; but now that you are just home and among your own people, I think I may speak and tell you how I feel toward you and how I have loved you since the moment I first saw you. And you, Lucy, do you think you could care for me?"
"Not more than I do now, Vin. I love you with all my heart. I have been trying so hard to believe that I didn't, because I thought you did not care for me that way."
For some minutes no further word was spoken. Vincent was the first to speak:
"It is horrid to have to sit here in this stiff, unnatural way, Lucy, when one is inclined to do something outrageous from sheer happiness. These long, open cars, where people can see from end to end what every one is doing, are hateful inventions. It is perfectly absurd, when one finds one's self the happiest fellow living, that one is obliged to look as demure and solemn as if one was in church."
"Then you should have waited, sir," the girl said.
"I meant to have waited, Lucy, until I got to your home, but directly I felt that there was no longer any harm in my speaking, out it came; but it's very hard to have to wait for hours perhaps."
"To wait for what?" Lucy asked demurely.