"You know better than that!" he said.
"Well, yes," she owned, "perhaps I'm wrong there; to you it would seem a sensible step. But I believe in myself. All my life I've had the thought, and I should be miserable, I should hate myself! I should be like my father—I should be always thinking of the 'might have been.' You'd be good to me, but you'd know you had been a fool. I'm not a bit the sort of woman you should marry, and you'd repent it."
Heriot took her hand and held it tightly.
"I love you," he said. "Consider your own happiness only. I love you."
"I am quite selfish—I know it wouldn't content me; I'm not pretending to any nobility. But I'm sorry; I may say that? I didn't dream you liked me in this way. I'm not hard, I'm not a horror, and I can see—I can see that I'm a lot to you."
"I'm glad of that," he said simply. "Yes, you're 'a lot to me,' Mamie. If you know it, and you can't care for me enough, there's no more for me to say. Don't worry yourself. It's not unusual for a man to be fond of a woman who doesn't want to marry him."
CHAPTER V
She betook herself to the Queen's next morning less buoyantly than she had anticipated. Her meeting with Heriot had depressed her. She retained much of the nature of a child, and laughed or cried very easily. She had met Heriot laughing, and he had been serious and sad. With some petulance she felt that it was very unfortunate for her that he had fallen in love with her, and chosen that particular day to tell her so.
She entered the stage-door with no presentiment of conquest, and inquired of the man in the little recess if Mr. Casey was in the theatre. Stage-door keepers are probably the surliest class in existence. They have much to try them, and they spend their official lives in a violent draught; but if there is a stage-door keeper sweet and sunny in his home, he provides an interesting study for the dramatic authors.