“You would not wish me to, Brian,” she continued. “You are an honest, God-fearing man. If I could put my hand in yours now and say, ‘Here I am, but I do not love you,’ you would spurn such a gift, would you not? You would say, ‘I prefer to wait till you can give me your whole self, not the least worthy part of yourself.’” He stirred about restlessly in his chair when she paused as if expecting some answer from him. “I do not know,” he murmured at last. “If you gave me the chance, I think I would embrace it. I think, Stargarde, that if you would come out of this and live with me, you would get to like me.”
“Oh, vain and stupid fallacy,” she exclaimed despairingly; “can you not see it?”
He did not answer, and there was a long silence between them, till she began to speak again, regarding him with a lovely smile of pity and affection. “You see what a terrible responsibility has been laid upon women, Brian. Men, by their long habit of indulging themselves in every impulse and giving freer rein to passion than women do, cannot so well control themselves. The woman must stand firm. I, by reason of your great affection for me, which I accept with all gratitude and humility, feel that I have a charge over you. I wish with all my heart that you could transfer your love to some other woman. If you do not and cannot, and I ever have the happiness to regard you with the same affection that you regard me, you may be sure that I shall marry you.”
The light of hope that played over his rugged features almost made them handsome, till Stargarde went on warningly: “But that day I fear will never come. Looking upon you as a dear brother, and having lived to the age of thirty years without falling in love with any man, I fear that I shall never do so.”
“Is that true?” he gasped with the famished eagerness of a dog that snatches for a whole joint and only gets a bone. “Have you never fancied any of the men that have fancied you?”
“Never,” she said with a smile and a shake of her head.
“How many proposals have you had?”
“I forget; about twenty, I think.”
His mouth worked viciously as if he would like to devour her quondam lovers.
“What a long way we have wandered from Vivienne Delavigne,” said Stargarde. “You were saying that Captain Macartney is in love with her. Does she love him?”