“Edith!”—he repeated it after her, in almost a passion of pain, “I have never dared call her so—she is as far above me as yonder star.” He paused at an open window and lifted his hand to a glorious planet glittering in mid heaven. “Ah, Mary, ah, my queen! ‘Hadst thou been less than thou art!’”
“Guy Winthrop!” broke wildly from her parted lips.
“Your majesty!” he straightened his fine form, and made a deprecatory movement with his white hand. “It seems that we have mutually mistaken each other for a different person. But suppose—remember, I only say suppose—that you were really the Edith whom I love, and I the Guy you named—what do you think they would say to each other? For instance now, what would Guy say to Edith? What do you think he would say, I mean?”
A sudden daring spirit, inherent in the grand old Chilton blood, leaped to her lips, and before she could think twice, she had uttered these words:
“He would say, ‘Edith, my darling, I love you!’”
The arm she leaned on trembled with the fierce throb of his heart.
“And what would Edith say?” he asked her, in low, unsteady tones.
“What would you like her to say?”—coquettishly.
“I should like to have her say, ‘Guy, I love you, and am yours forever!’ But what do you think she would say?”
Low and tenderly she whispered: