A moment later and he stood alone in the sweet dusk of 326 the night. She had fairly run from him along the little arbor to the side door, where she vanished unseen by the others. How she was for all her queenly ways! What a creature of moods, and passions, and emotions! The hand on which her tear had fallen he touched to his cheek. Why had she wept at his confession of love for her? She had not wept when the same words were spoken on that never-to-be-forgotten day in Paris!
CHAPTER XXVII.
The love affair of Colonel McVeigh was not the only one under consideration that evening. Delaven was following up the advice of the Judge and Madame Caron to the extent of announcing to Mistress McVeigh during a pause in the dance that his heart was heavy, though his feet were light, and that she held his fate in her hands, for he was madly in love, which statement she had time to consider and digest before the quadrille again allowed them to come close enough for conversation, when she asked the meaning of his mystery.
“First, let me know, Mrs. McVeigh, which you would prefer if you had a choice––to have me for your family physician, or a physician in your family?”
She smiled at the excentric question, but as the dance whisked him off just then she waited for the next installment of his confidence.
“You must tell me, first, what relationship you seek to establish,” she demanded, as he came up for his answer.
He looked at her quizzically, and seeing a slight gleam of 327 humor in her fine eyes, he launched into the heart of the question.
“What relationship? Well, I should say that of husband and wife, if I was not afraid of being premature;” he glanced at her and saw that she was interested and not in the least forbidding. “To be sure, I am poor, while you are wealthy, but I’m willing to overlook that; in fact, I’m willing to overlook anything, and dare all things if you would only consider me favorably––as a son-in-law.”