Then he sits down on the sofa beside her and, putting his arm round her, draws her near him.
He had felt that kiss she gave him go through him like an electric shock that sent the blood rushing through his veins, and made his pulses throb hard.
Scores of women had offered him kisses before, and he had accepted them or rejected them according to his mood, but this kiss, that the girl he is going to marry had volunteered of her own accord, seemed quite different to the rest. Then a sudden thought came like a stab.
“Zai,” he asks gravely, “are you sure—quite sure—that you are acting according to your feelings in marrying me?”
She looks up at him in surprise. His face is quite pale, but his eyes seem to burn strangely.
“Quite sure,” she answers quietly, convinced in her own mind that she is sure—perfectly sure of the fact.
“Darling Zai! You have never given me a chance before to tell you how I love you—love you with all my heart! to tell you that I will strain every nerve to make you care for me as I care for you! But there is one thing you must confess to me. Loving you as I do I shall be a very lenient judge, my child. Do you love me enough to be true to me always?”
She knows she does not love him as she had loved Carl. That had been a mad phantom, possessing her heart and her brain. But she knows if she marries this man she will make him a good and true wife.
She is sure that, in deed and word, and even thought, she will be loyal and faithful to him always.
The fitful pink colour comes and goes on her cheek, the big grey eyes droop as they have a habit of doing, but a smile—a little ghost of a smile, hovers round her pretty red lips.