“Well,” she said, sitting down with forced calmness, “it doesn’t matter; but are you quite sure now that you really want me?”
There was no doubt that he was desperately anxious for her formal word; there was a feverish eagerness in his eyes. It puzzled her, but it left her unmoved and cold.
“Want you!” he cried. “Can you ask? Haven’t I constantly shown my devotion?”
“For the last few months—I mean after Lisle went back to Canada,” she replied with gathering color. “Before then, for a time, I think one could reasonably have doubted it.”
He looked confused; that Bella had attracted him had been obvious, and there was no way of getting over the fact gracefully.
“I’m afraid I have my weaknesses—want of balance, impulsiveness, and a capacity for being easily piqued,” he confessed. “Well, though perhaps I deserved it, you were cold and aloof enough to madden a more patient man, and I suppose I slackly yielded to wounded vanity. All the time, you were the one I had chosen, the only woman who had ever really stirred or could influence me. Nearly as long as I can remember I have loved and respected you. Occasionally you unbent enough to show me that you recognized it.”
There was some truth in this, and seeing the change in her expression, he went on:
“You can’t cast me off and fling me back upon myself—I couldn’t face that. During those last few months in England, you helped me forward far more than you suspected—showed me my duties, enabled me to carry them out. I can’t go on alone; I’m your responsibility; having taken it up, you can’t deny it now.”
Millicent smiled faintly.
“No,” she admitted; “I suppose that would be hardly fair.”