She had not intended to say so—at least, not at first. She had made up her mind that it would be only right to inform him that she was fourteen months older than he (she had looked him out in Burke where she herself was not to be found); that she was "old enough to be his mother"; also that she was of a cold, revengeful temper not calculated to make a home happy, and several other odious traits of character which she had never dreamed of confiding to any of the regiment of her previous lovers.
But the only word she had breath to say when the time came was "Yes."
Rachel had shivered and hesitated on the brink of a new love long enough. Her anxiety about Hugh had unconsciously undermined her resistance. His confession had given her instantly the confidence in him which had been wanting. It is not perfection that we look for in our fellow-creatures, but for what is apparently rarer, a little plain dealing.
How they rise before us!—the sweet reproachful faces of those whom we could have loved devotedly if they had been willing to be straightforward with us; whom we have lost, not by our own will, but by that paralysis of feeling which gradually invades the heart at the discovery of small insincerities. Sincerity seems our only security against losing those who love us, the only cup in which those who are worth keeping will care to pledge us when youth is past.
Rachel was not by nature de celles qui se jettent dans l'amour comme dans un précipice. But she shut her eyes, recommended her soul to God, and threw herself over. She had climbed down once—with assistance—and she was not going to do that again. That she found herself alive at the bottom was a surprise to her, but a surprise that was quickly forgotten in the constant wonder that Hugh could love her as devotedly as it was obvious he did.
Women would have shared that wonder, but not men. There was a home ready made in Rachel's faithful, dog-like eyes, which at once appealed to the desire of expansion of empire in the heart of the free-born Briton.
Hugh had, until lately, considered woman as connected with the downward slope of life. He would have loudly disclaimed such an opinion if it had been attributed to him; but nevertheless it was the key-note of his behavior towards them, his belief concerning them which was of a piece with his cheap cynicism and dilettante views of life. He now discovered that woman was made out of something more than man's spare rib.
It is probable that if he had never been in love with Lady Newhaven, Hugh would never have loved Rachel. He would have looked at her, as many men did, with a view to marriage and would probably have dismissed her from his thoughts as commonplace. He knew better now. It was Lady Newhaven who was commonplace. His worldliness was dropping from him day by day as he learned to know Rachel better.
Where was his cynicism now that she loved him?