He clasped her in his arms again, and for a moment her lips met his. Then with one consent they stood there hand in hand.
“I will tell him at once,” said Geoffrey. “I know it will seem to him like madness; but I dare not meet him if I could not look him in the face. It is unfortunate, Rhoda, but yet I could not go back a moment of my life now.”
“Unfortunate?” she said gently.
“Yes. Have you thought what it may mean?”
She shook her head.
“The end of a dream of success. Mr Penwynn will say, what right have I to think of you? He will call me adventurer, ask me how I dared to presume, and bid me never enter his house again. I am his servant, and it will be just.”
“My father will be just,” said Rhoda, gazing in his face; “and if he is surprised and angry at first, he loves me too well to cause me pain. Geoffrey: I am not ashamed of my choice.”
He held her hands, looking down at her proudly, wondering that he had not loved her from the first.
“You will succeed, Geoffrey,” she continued, “and we can wait, for we are young yet. My father, I know, already likes you for the same reason that you first won my esteem.”
“And why was that?” he said, smiling.