She struggled to be free. “Oh, listen, listen to me, please!”
He kissed her with passion. “My life is yours; would you rob me of it? I cannot listen to you——”
She gave over, and lay with hidden face until she dared to look up again. Then, when both were calmer, she showed her serious face. Playing with his eyeglasses, she did relieve her mind of one of her fears. “Do you know,” she said, “unless you are with me—always—I am sure that I shall do something mad, or bad. Run away from it all—hide myself.” She nodded her head sadly. “Yes, I’m quite sure.” He could afford to look at the future, not the past.
“Why, then, my love, I shall be with you always—night and day. Do you hear me? Night and day! How will you like that?” She hung her head, peered up at him for a second, and hung her head again. He could do nothing but kiss her after that.
He stayed to tea, which she prepared with her own quick hands. She and Jinny entertained him, and he had never liked that pronounced young woman so well. It was her birthday, Jinny’s birthday, he was told. “A few days only from mine,” he said, with a fine smile to Mary, which made her understand him, and blush. “Twenty-nine to-day,” said Jinny candidly, cutting cake. “This is my cake, Mr. Germain. I suppose you’ll give Mary a better one.”
“I shall give her the best I can, Miss Jinny, you may be sure,” he said heartily, and she nodded to him her confidence in his love. He treated her with grave politeness, which lost all its distance by the evident interest he took in her affairs. She gave herself no airs or graces, was neither pert nor sniffing for offence, nor airy, nor merely odious. Germain’s own manners were so fine, so based upon candour and honesty that one could not fail to respond. Even Jinny Middleham forgot herself; and as for Mary, she sat quietly on the watch, really happy, really at ease about the dread future—and whatever terrors she may have owed to Tristram she had none now. Yet she was to have one more chance. At parting she clung to him again, and begged him not to leave her for long. “I’m safe with you—I feel that. Oh, how did you make me like you?”
“By liking you myself, I expect, little witch.”
“I’m not a witch. I’m a dunce, and you know that I am. But listen——”
“I listen, dearest.”
“I am going to be the best girl in the world. I’m going to do everything that you tell me—always.”