“Dearest! I fear I am not very clever at comprehending the ways of your sex. Perhaps if I had—”
Holtspur interrupted himself, as if he had arrived on the verge of some disclosure he did not desire to make.
“If you had,” inquired Marion, in a tone that told of an altered interest. “What if you had, Henry?”
“If I had,” replied her lover, escaping from his embarrassment by a happy subterfuge, “I should not have been so dilatory in declaring my love to you.”
The speech was pretty; but alas! ambiguous. It gave Marion pleasure, to think he had long loved her; and yet it stirred within her a painful emotion—by recalling the bold challenge by which she had lured him to the avowal of it.
He, too, as soon as he had spoken, appeared to perceive the danger of such an interpretation; and in order to avert it, hurriedly had recourse to his former interrogatory.
“Do the same, you said, as I have done with the flowers. And with what?”
“The token I gave you, Henry—the white gauntlet.”
“When I fling it to the earth, as I have done these withered blossoms, it will be to defy him who may question my right to wear it. When that time comes, Marion Wade—”
“Oh! never!” cried she—in the enthusiasm of her admiration fervently pressing his arm, and looking fondly in his face. “None but you, Henry, shall ever have that right. To no other could I concede it. Believe me—believe me!”