Alaric touched his heart tenderly:
"Yes, really. All round HERE!"
"Perhaps it's because I disturbed yer night's rest, Alaric?"
"You've disturbed ALL my rest. If you GO I'll never have ANY rest." Once again he spurred on his flagging spirits and threw all his ardour into the appeal. "I've really begun to care for you very much. Oh, very, very much. It all came to me in a flash—down in the room." And—for the moment—he really meant it. He began to see qualities in his little cousin which he had never noticed before. And the fact that she was not apparently a willing victim, added zest to the attack.
Peg looked at him with unfeigned interest:
"Sure, that does ye a great dale of credit. I've been thinkin' all the time I've known ye that ye only cared for YERSELF—like all Englishmen."
"Oh, no," protested Alaric. "Oh, DEAR, no. We care a great deal at times—oh, a GREAT deal—and never say a word about it—not a single word. You know we hate to wear our hearts on our sleeves."
"I don't blame ye. Ye'd wear them out too soon, maybe."
Alaric felt that the moment had now really come.
"Cousin," he said, and his voice dropped to the caressing note of a wooer: "Cousin! Do you know I am going to do something now I've never done before?"