“Was I blind and deaf? Could I see you, and talk to you, and listen to your praises from far and near, and keep my head? Do you know in the least what you are like? I’ll carry a little mirror in my pocket and let you see yourself some time when you are animated and happy. I’ll make you admire yourself.”
“Have you fallen in love with me for my looks?”
“Partly. Certainly. I love your looks, and I won’t have them depreciated. And with your goodness, and sweetness, and strength, and your unreasonableness, and temper, and weaknesses—and which I love the most I really can’t say. There’s not a bit of you I don’t love, or would have altered if I could.”
Vanna shivered. Already the golden moment had passed, and a shadow fell across her joy. This climax of bliss—what could it be but a presage of the end? She drew herself away from Piers’s encircling arms.
“Ah, what have I done? Piers, what have I done? I have forgotten—we have both forgotten. I told you my secret that day on the cliff when you heard me cry. Do you know why I cried? Because Jean had spoken of a girl in town, with whom she thought you were in love. It tortured me; I was nearly wild with jealousy and despair. And then you came, and I blurted it all out. No! it was not noble. I was thinking of myself. I wanted to get the weight off my mind, that I might enjoy you with an easy mind. I felt that if you knew the worst, and cared to be with me after that, the responsibility was yours, not mine; and I tried—I tried to make you care! I deluded myself, but I know now that I did try. I thought I could not help it, but it was selfish—cowardly. I should have thought of your good. Piers, I can never be your wife; you can never marry me. I have only brought fresh trouble. Can you ever forgive me?”
He smiled at her, and, disregarding the outstretched hands, drew her back into his arms.
“Forgive you, my best of blessings! For the moment I can think of nothing but love. My mind isn’t big enough to grasp anything beyond that tremendous fact. The present is ours, darling; be content in that. We are here together in our Happy Land—you and I. Nothing can rob us of this hour. If it ended here, this minute, I should still bless God for His goodness. To know you love me, to hold you here in my arms—it’s worth living for, Vanna. But it’s not going to end. Trust to me. I will go up to town. I will interview the doctor. I will find a way. You are mine, and all the world shall not keep you from me.”
Vanna smiled in his face with happy, love-lit eyes. He was a god in her eyes, and the gods are omnipotent. If Piers willed a thing it did not seem possible that he could fail. Reason fled discomfited. She loved, and was blind.