'You have told me about three times,—to bring me "La Quarantaine."'
'I have come to tell you a secret I have kept more than a year. Have you never guessed it, Madge? Have I been clever enough to hide the truth altogether? I love you, dearest. I, penniless Churchill Penwyn, dare to adore one of the belles of the season. I, who cannot for years to come offer you a house in May Fair. I, who at most can venture to begin married life in a Bloomsbury lodging, supported by the fruits of my pen. It sounds like madness, doesn't it?'
'It is madness,' she answered, looking full at him with her truthful eyes.
The answer surprised and humiliated him. He fancied she loved him—would be ready to face poverty for his sake. She was so young, and would hardly have acquired the wisdom of her world yet awhile.
'I beg your pardon,' he said, a curious change coming over his face, a sudden coldness that made those definite features look as if they had been cut out of stone. 'I have been deceiving myself all along, it seems. I did not think I was quite indifferent to you.'
The eyelids drooped over the dark eyes for a moment, and were then lifted suddenly, and the eyes met Churchill's. That one look told all. She loved him.
'I have been learning to know the world while other girls are allowed to dream,' she said. 'I know what the burden of debt means. Poverty brings debt as a natural sequence. If you were a woodcutter and we could live in a hovel and pay our way, there would be nothing appalling in marriage. But our world will not let us live like that. We must play at being fine ladies and gentlemen while our hearts are breaking, and our creditors being ruined. Ever so long ago I made up my mind that I must marry a rich man. If I have ever seemed otherwise to you than a woman of the world, bent upon worldly success, I humbly beg you to forgive me.'
'Madge,' cried Churchill, passionately, 'I will forgive anything if you will only be frank. Were my luck to turn speedily, through some unlooked-for professional success, for instance, would you have me then?'
'If I stood alone in the world, if I had not my sister to consider, I would marry you to-morrow. Yes, though you were a beggar,' she answered, grandly.
He clasped her to his breast and kissed those proud lips. The first lover's kiss that had ever rested there.