Bocqueraz sat down at the desk opposite her, and stared at her across folded arms.
"Nothing to say," he said quietly. But instantly some sudden violent passion shook him; he pressed both palms to his temples, and Susan could see that the fingers with which he covered his eyes were shaking. "My God! What more can I do?" he said aloud, in a low tone. "What more can I do? You come to me with this, little girl," he said, gripping her hands in his. "You turn to me, as your only friend just now. And I'm going to be worthy of your trust in me!"
He got up and walked to the window, and Susan followed him there.
"Sweetheart," he said to her, and in his voice was the great relief that follows an ended struggle, "I'm only a man, and I love you! You are the dearest and truest and wittiest and best woman I ever knew. You've made all life over for me, Susan, and you've made me believe in what I always thought was only the fancy of writers and poets;--that a man and woman are made for each other by God, and can spend all their lives,--yes, and other lives elsewhere--in glorious companionship, wanting nothing but each other. I've seen a good many women, but I never saw one like you. Will you let me take care of you, dear? Will you trust me? You know what I am, Sue; you know what my work stands for. I couldn't lie to you. You say you know the two extremes of life, dear, but I want to show you a third sort; where money ISN'T paramount, where rich people have souls, and where poor people get all the happiness that there is in life!"
His arm was about her now; her senses on fire; her eyes brimming.
"But do you love me?" whispered Susan.
"Love you!" His face had grown pale. "To have you ask me that," he said under his breath, "is the most heavenly--the most wonderful thing that ever came into my life! I'm not worthy of it. But God knows that I will take care of you, Sue, and, long before I take you to New York, to my own people, these days will be only a troubled dream. You will be my wife then--"
The wonderful word brought the happy color to her face.
"I believe you," she said seriously, giving him both her hands, and looking bravely into his eyes. "You are the best man I ever met--I can't let you go. I believe it would be wrong to let you go." She hesitated, groped for words. "You're the only thing in the world that seems real to me," Susan said. "I knew that the old days at Auntie's were all wrong and twisted somehow, and here--" She indicated the house with a shudder. "I feel stifled here!" she said. "But--but if there is really some place where people are good and simple, whether they're rich or poor, and honest, and hard-working--I want to go there! We'll have books and music, and a garden," she went on hurriedly, and he felt that the hands in his were hot, "and we'll live so far away from all this sort of thing, that we'll forget it and they'll forget us! I would rather," Susan's eyes grew wistful, "I would rather have a garden where my babies could make mud-pies and play, then be married to Kenneth Saunders in the Cathedral with ten brides-maids!"
Perhaps something in the last sentence stirred him to sudden compunction.