The letter concluded with this characteristic touch; she seemed to hear his voice as she read it:
"I have written frankly because I believed it would prejudice you in my favor. Had I believed otherwise, doubtless I should have written in terms of flattery and deceit, for of such is man when seeking woman in marriage.
"If you return the affirmative answer I shall be very happy to come up and spend the rest of my vacation at your father's home—provided it is agreeable to you."
Rose sat rigidly still in her chair, her hands in her lap, holding the letter.
It had come again, this question of marriage, and this time it appealed to her whole nature—to her intellectual part as well as to her material self; uttered this time by a voice which had no tremor in it.
How strange it all was! How different from the other proposals she had received; apparently cold and legal, yet under the lines she felt something deep and manly and passionate, because she was only a coulé girl, and he was a man of the great intellectual world; a man who "molded public opinion" by the power of his editorial pen. He was greater than that. In his presence you felt him to be a man of national reputation living quietly under an assumed name.
There rose a great pride in her heart. He had selected her from among the women of the world! He loved her so much he had written her this strange letter, which plead for her under its rigid order of words. She held the letter to her lips as if to get its secret meaning so and then she dropped it as if it were a husk. No matter what it said, she felt the spirit of the man.
She wrote a few lines and sealed them quickly. Then she fell into thought upon the terms of his letter. She hardly comprehended the significance of the minor statements, so filled was she with the one great fact, he wished her to be his wife! She was poor, unknown, and yet he had chosen her!
There was something sad in the letter, too—like his face it was inscrutable, intricate, but (she believed) noble in intention. The freedom of action which he claimed for himself did not trouble her, for she felt his love beneath it. His word "comrade" pleased her, too. It seemed to be wholesome and sweet, and promised intellectual companionship never before possible to her.
O, to be the wife of such a man! to have his daily help and presence; it was wonderful, it could not be true! Yet there lay the letter in her lap, and there the firm, calm, even signature. She rose to her feet and her heart dilated with pride, and her head was that of a newly crowned princess. Oh, the great splendid world out there!
She took up her letter suddenly and went downstairs and out into the yard in search of her father. He was sitting by the bees, with dreamy eyes. He spent a great deal of his time there.