“It is difficult to say. It’s not an easy subject to discuss. Need we go on?”
“I think so. I think it is my right. In justice to myself, I think you ought to tell me how I have made myself so disagreeable. It might be useful to me in the future!”
For all answer he steered the car to the side of the road, brought it to a standstill, and descended from his seat. There was an air of deliberation about the proceeding which sent a shiver down my spine. The inference was that the enumeration of my faults was so lengthy a business that it could not be undertaken by a man who had other work in hand. I sat in nervous fascination, watching him slowly cross to my side of the car, lean forward, and place both hands on the screen. His face was quite close to mine. It looked suddenly white and tense. He opened his lips and spoke:—
“Evelyn, will you be my wife?”
If I live to be a hundred, never—no, never shall I forget the electric shock of that moment! To be prepared to listen to a lecture on one’s faults and failings, and to hear in its place a proposal of marriage—could anything be more paralysing? And to have it hurled at one with no warning, no preliminary “leading up,” and from Ralph Maplestone of all people—the most reserved, the most unsusceptible, the most woman-hating of mankind! I sat petrified, unable to move or to speak, unable to do anything but stare, and stare, and stare, and listen with incredulous ears to a string of passionate protestations. Half of what he said was lost in the dazed bewilderment of the moment, but what I did hear, went something like this:—
“You are the first woman—the only woman. Before you came I was content. Since we met, I have been in torment. You woke me up. When a man is roused from a trance it gives him pain. You brought pain to me—sleeplessness, discontent, a craving that grew and grew. I wished we had never met—you had upset my life; I believed that I hated you for it. Delphine questioned me. It was then I told her that I disliked you. I meant it—I thought I meant it! I longed for you to disappear and leave me in peace, yet all the time I thought of you more and more. Your smile! Whenever we met, you smiled, and the remembrance of it followed me home. Wherever I went your face haunted me. I planned to go away, to travel, to break myself loose; but it was no use, I could not go. I dreaded to see you, but I dreaded more to go away. I hung about the places you might pass. That dress with the flounces! I could see the blue of it coming toward me through the branches. That night you were ill! All the colour went out of your cheeks. I would have given my life—my life! I have never loved before. I did not know what love meant, but you have taught me. You have waked me from sleep. I’m not good enough—a surly brute! Couldn’t expect any girl to care; but for seven years—twice seven years—I’d serve, I’d wait. Oh, my beautiful, my beautiful—if you could see yourself! How can I stay here, and let you go? Marry me! Marry me! This week, to-morrow—what are conventions to us? I’ll be good to you. All the love of my life is waiting—I’ve never squandered it away. It has been stored up in my heart for you.”
I held up my hand, imploring him to stop.
“Oh, Mr Maplestone, don’t! It’s all a mistake. It must be! How can you care? You know so little of me; we have met so seldom. How can you possibly know that you would like me as a wife?”
He gave a quick, excited laugh.
“It’s all true what those poet fellows write about love! I used to laugh and call it nonsense; but when it comes to one’s own turn, it’s the truest thing in the whole world! How do I know? I can’t tell you, Evelyn; but I do know. It’s just the one certain fact in life. I want you! I’m going to have you!”