Wilfred was sitting beside a little table covered with a scarf of coffee-colored Italian silk in alternate stripes, shiny and dull. On the table were some of Frances Mary’s precious gim-cracks. She loved little objects of all sorts, if they had beauty. On this table, a row of books still in their paper wrappers; a white Chinese bowl, decorated with red fish, and filled with apples; a small censer of pierced silver; an enamelled snuffbox; some miniature ivory grotesques; a bit of cloisonné. Wilfred knew every object in the room.
Opposite him, sat Frances Mary by the tea-table, watching the kettle, which at this season did its work suspended over an alcohol flame. With her bright hair banded round her head in a style of her own; and wearing a soft draped dress the same color as her hair, what a grateful sight to the eye! Purely feminine; ladylike—horrible word for a lovely quality. What was the color of her hair? Wilfred had always termed it sorrel, but was dissatisfied with the word. Now the right word leaped into his mind; fallow! Of course! the color of the fallow deer! Fallow! a delicious word!—But Frances Mary’s veiled level glance and reticent lips rejected passion. She seemed less sympathetic to him than usual.
In the silence Wilfred saw the abyss yawning at his feet, and shutting his eyes, leaped. His limbs were palsied; his tongue clave to the roof of his mouth. He said stammeringly:
“Frances Mary, how about you and I getting married?”
She looked at him quickly, her face dimpling with laughter. “Why, Wilfred! Just like that! . . . You’re not in love with me!”
“I’m fed up with love!” cried Wilfred, bitterly, before he thought of the implications of his speech. Panic seized him. “With the idea of love,” he hastily added, becoming aware at the same moment, that he was only making matters worse.
Frances Mary’s lashes were lowered. Her face showed no other change. There was a silence. Having taken the leap, and not having met with annihilation, Wilfred began to discover resources in himself. After all, the whole truth had to come out; and it didn’t so much matter if it came wrong end first.
“I don’t expect you to give me an answer out of hand,” he went on. “We must talk it out. I know that this must appear to you like just another of my artificial, self-conscious flights, but if you will only have a little patience with me, I will convince you.”
“Could one marry from conviction?” she asked lightly.
“Yes!” he cried. “That’s the very point! The notion that passion must decide is fatal. I know it! I know it!”