“Oh!” And she lifted her head a trifle proudly. “Then, out of kindness—or pity—you would have married me against your own inclination?”
He sought for his tobacco pouch and began refilling his pipe. A little smile was on his lips.
“Against my own inclination? I should think so!—very much against it! God bless my soul! Think of my having to give up my splendid solitude, my days and nights of peace and happiness, just to be at the beck and call of a little woman who doesn’t know her own mind clearly for two days together! I doubt if you are even now quite sure as to which man would make you the best husband—I or Jack!”
She flushed a sudden crimson—tears sprang to her eyes—and she turned away her head. Quietly and almost tenderly he took her hand in his own and patted it.
“There, there!” he said. “I know you better than you know yourself! You are tormenting your mind with all sorts of foolish ideas,—sentimental ideas,—I’ve always told you that you will overdo the sentiment! You are thinking that perhaps you have treated me a little unfairly,—that when I ventured to suggest myself as a kind of protective wall,—that is to say a husband—between you and a rough world—your refusal disappointed me—or hurt me. You are quite mistaken! I was”—here he drew a long breath—“yes!—I was thankful! The relief was simply immense! If you had accepted my proposition—well!—I should have been utterly miserable! Yes!—I should have done my duty of course—I should have resigned myself to the slavery of married life with my usual philosophy—I should not have complained—and—and—I should have tried to be kind to you—but my life would have been a slow martyrdom! A fact! Ah, you may look at me as long as you like with those baby blue eyes of yours!—you will never discover anything in me but what you always saw and recognised from the first—sheer, downright selfishness! That’s it! What do you suppose I took so much trouble over Jack Durham for? Simply that he might get home and marry you—and so relieve my mind of a great burden. Many a time I was afraid he would die—and in that case I should have got in for it!—all up with me!—an elderly Benedick—”
She took her hand away from his.
“You really mean it?” she asked.
“Mean,—what?”
“That it would have been a great misery for you to have married me?”
She spoke so wistfully and her sweet upturned face expressed such innocent wonder that with all his best effort he had much ado to keep his self-possession. As she had released his hand, he took to fumbling in his tobacco pouch.