“Why must I owe everything to you?”
“Why, dear? Why, because, if you do, it’s very much better than your owing it to anybody else. Proud again?”
Not proud: only second fiddle.
“You know, dear Evan, when two people love, there is no such thing as owing between them.”
“Rose, I have been thinking. It is not too late. I love you, God knows! I did in Portugal: I do now—more and more. But Oh, my bright angel!” he ended the sentence in his breast.
“Well? but—what?”
Evan sounded down the meaning of his “but.” Stripped of the usual heroics, it was, “what will be thought of me?” not a small matter to any of us. He caught a distant glimpse of the little bit of bare selfishness, and shrank from it.
“Too late,” cried Rose. “The battle has commenced now, and, Mr. Harrington, I will lean on your arm, and be led to my dear friends yonder. Do they think that I am going to put on a mask to please them? Not for anybody! What they are to know they may as well know at once.”
She looked in Evan’s face.
“Do you hesitate?”