“Are generally tolerable dancers, and popular in a ball-room, especially when they are the givers of the ball—that they can talk to pretty women without feeling abashed—and that they contrive to get through a good deal of flirting without singeing their wings. I have waltzed with a good many nice girls in my time, Allegra, and I have sat out a good many waltzes. Yet I am here at your side, honestly and devotedly your own; and I have never loved any other woman with the love I feel for you. No other woman has ever held my whole heart; no, not for a single hour.”
“You make nice distinctions,” said Allegra, gently disengaging herself from his arm, and looking at him with a faint, shy smile, very doubtful, yet very anxious to believe. “I am dreadfully afraid that all this fine talk means nothing more than you would say to any of your partners, if you happened to be sitting out a waltz.”
“Should I ask any of my partners to be my wife, do you think?”
“Oh, you can withdraw that to-morrow—forget and ignore it. We may both consider it only a kind of under-the-mistletoe declaration, meaning no more than a mistletoe kiss. I believe when English people were domestic and kept Christmas, the head of the family would have kissed his cook if he had met her under the mistletoe.”
“Allegra, is it not cruel of you to be jocose when I am so tremendously serious?”
“What if I don’t believe in your seriousness?”
“Is this only a polite way of refusing me?” he asked, beginning to be offended, not understanding that this nonsense-talk was a hasty defence against overpowering emotion, that she was not sure of him, and was desperately afraid of betraying herself. “Am I to understand that you don’t care a straw for me?”
“No, no, no,” she cried eagerly, “as a friend, I like you better than any one else in the world; only I don’t want to give you more than friendship till I can trust you well enough to believe in your love.”
“Prove it, Allegra,” he cried, clasping her waist again before she was aware. “Put me to any test or any trial—impose any duty upon me. Only tell me that if I come through the ordeal you will be my wife.”
“You are not in a great hurry to fetter yourself, I hope?” she said.