"It's no good beating about the bush," said I, desperately clothing my sentiments in slang, after the manner of my age; "the fellow who gets you for a wife, Maria, must be uncommonly fortunate, and I hope that with a good husband, who made your wishes his first consideration, you would not be unhappy in married life yourself."
Lower and lower went her head, but still she was silent.
"You say nothing," I went on. "Probably I am altogether wrong, and you are too kind-hearted to tell me I am an impertinent puppy. It is Dacrefield—the place only—that you honour with your regard. You have no affection for—"
Maria did not let me finish this sentence. She put up her hands to stop me, and seemed as if she wished to speak; but after one pitiful glance she buried her face in her hands and wept bitterly. I am sure I have read somewhere that when a woman weeps she is won. So Maria was mine. I had a grim feeling about it which I cannot describe. "I hope the governor will be satisfied now," was my thought.
However, there is nothing I hate more than to see a woman cry. To be the means of making her cry is intolerable.
"Please, please, don't! Oh, Maria, what a brute you make me feel. Please don't," I cried, and raising my cousin from her Niobe-like attitude, I comforted her as well as I could. She only said, "Oh, Regie dear, how kind you are," and laid her sleek head against my arm with an air of rest and trustfulness that touched my generosity to the quick. What right had I, after all, to accept an affection to which I could make no similar return? "However," thought I, "it's done now; and they say it's always more on one side than the other; and at least I'm a gentleman. I care for no one else, and she shall never know it was chiefly to please the governor. I suppose it will all come right."
Whilst I pondered, Maria had dried her eyes, and now sat up, gazing before her, almost in her old attitude.
"I wonder, Regie dear," she said, presently—"I wonder how you found out that I—that we—that I cared—"
"Oh, I don't know," said I, inanely, for I could not say that nothing could be plainer.