"God bless you, and good-by!" He knew that if he remained he would lose all control, crush her madly in his arms, and hurt her lips with his despairing kisses. He had not gone a dozen paces, when he heard her call pathetically. He stopped.
"Mr. Warburton, surely you are not going to leave me here alone with the horses?"
"Pardon me, I did not think! I am confused!" he blundered.
"You are modest, too." Why is it that, at the moment a man succumbs to his embarrassment, a woman rises above hers? "Come nearer,"—a command which he obeyed with some hesitation. "You have been a groom, a butler, all for the purpose of telling me that you love me. Listen. Love is like a pillar based upon a dream: one by one we lay the stones of beauty, of courage, of faith, of honor, of steadfastness. We wake, and how the beautiful pillar tumbles about our ears! What right have you to build up your pillar upon a dream of me? What do you know of the real woman—for I have all the faults and vanities of the sex; what do you know of me? How do you know that I am not selfish? that I am constant? that I am worthy a man's loving?"
"Love is not like Justice, with a pair of scales to weigh this or that.
I do not ask why I love you; the knowledge is all I need. And you are
not selfish, inconstant, and God knows that you are worth loving. As
I said, I ask for nothing."
"On the other hand," she continued, as if she had not heard his interpolation, "I know you thoroughly. I have had evidence of your courage, your steadfastness, your unselfishness. Do not misunderstand me. I am proud that you love me. This love of yours, which asks for no reward, only the right to confess, ought to make any good woman happy, whether she loved or not. And you would have gone away without telling me, even!"
"Yes." He dug into the earth with his riding-boot. If only she knew how she was crucifying him!
"Why were you going away without telling me?"
He was dumb.
Her arms and eyes, uplifted, appealed to heaven. "What shall I say? How shall I make him understand?" she murmured. "You love me, and you ask for nothing? Is it because in spirit my father has committed a crime?"—growing tall and darting a proud glance at him.