"Won't you sit down? I have something to say."
The girl did as he suggested, and his smile died away.
"Would you be astonished if I were to ask you to marry me?"
He leaned against the smooth wall of yew, looking down at her with an impressive steadiness of gaze. She could imagine him facing the city men from whom he had extorted the full value of his mine in the same fashion, and, in a later instance, so surveying the eddies beneath the osiers, when he had gone to Mabel's rescue. It was borne in upon her that they would better understand each other.
"No," she answered. "If I must be candid, I am not astonished." Then the color crept into her cheeks as she met his gaze. "I suppose it is an honor; and it is undoubtedly a—temptation."
"A temptation?"
"Yes," said Evelyn, mustering her courage to face a crisis she had dreaded. "It is only due you that you should hear the truth—though I think you suspect it. Besides—I have some liking for you."
"That is what I wanted you to own!" Vane broke in.
She checked him with a gesture. Her manner was cold, and yet there was something in it that stirred him more than her beauty.
"After all," she explained, "it does not go very far, and you must try to understand. I want to be quite honest, and what I have to say is—difficult. In the first place, things are far from pleasant for me here; I was expected to make a good marriage, and I had my chance in London. I refused to profit by it, and now I'm a failure. I wonder whether you can realize what a temptation it is to get away?"