"Bring me my bow of burning gold,
Bring me my arrows of desire,"
and, contained man that he was, he caught his breath at the sudden leap in him of the thing that had been covered and hidden there so long, something fine and keen as flame, that set his habitually cool blood beating under his eyelids.
"It was not the rose," he said. "I had another reason in asking you to come here."
"Yes?" Her voice was evenly inquiring.
"It was to ask you if you will marry me."
She took a quick step backward; a look of amaze had sprung to her face. "I?" she exclaimed. "You want me to—marry you?"
"Yes. Is there anything strange in that?"
She looked away. In all her thoughts of the man before her there had not lurked this possibility. She had been bred among youth who, whatever their other vices, maintained a chivalric ideal of womankind which excluded fast-and-loose conduct; and the whispers that clung about Cameron Craig—set, as they were, over against his force and undeniably brilliant attainments—had lent her opinion of him a certain cold contempt. And now here he was—he of all men!—saying this to her! And it was no hasty impulse: she read that in the steady, confident eyes, the hard, heavy jaw, the steadfast, deep-lined face.
She felt his waiting gaze. "No," she answered, slowly. "Perhaps it is not strange. It is only that the unexpected seems so." She looked at him curiously. "Why did you ask me—to-day?"
"The opportunity came," he said. "It must have, sooner or later."