“That’s an excellent reason, surely. But did you want to look at me only? Have you nothing to tell me?”
His beautiful persuasive eyes were fixed upon her face, and she wondered what answer would be noble enough to make to such a gaze as that. For a moment her own eyes took it in, and then—“I did want to look at you!” she said gently. But after this speech, most inconsistently, she hid her face.
Morris watched her for a moment, attentively. “Will you marry me to-morrow?” he asked suddenly.
“To-morrow?”
“Next week, then. Any time within a month.”
“Isn’t it better to wait?” said Catherine.
“To wait for what?”
She hardly knew for what; but this tremendous leap alarmed her. “Till we have thought about it a little more.”
He shook his head, sadly and reproachfully. “I thought you had been thinking about it these three weeks. Do you want to turn it over in your mind for five years? You have given me more than time enough. My poor girl,” he added in a moment, “you are not sincere!”
Catherine coloured from brow to chin, and her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, how can you say that?” she murmured.