“Of what then?” asked Cicely wonderingly.
“I was thinking,” he began, then hesitated and stopped short. “I don’t think you will misunderstand me,” he resumed, as if encouraging himself with the idea. “I was thinking if possibly life would look less bare and empty to you if you were to make up your mind to join me in my work.”
He raised his eyes as he spoke and looked at her with calm inquiry.
“To join you,” Cicely repeated, “how do you mean?”
“By marrying me, by becoming my wife,” he replied deliberately.
Then Cicely in turn looked at him. How, small and fair and boyish he seemed—how innocent and almost childlike! The idea of regarding him as a husband, a protector, and guide, struck Cicely with a sense of the strangest incongruity. For half a second there came over her a foolish, half-nervous inclination to laugh, but another glance at him, at the serious matter-of-fact earnestness of his expression, checked the impulse and restored her to composure.
“You are very kind and good,” she began. “I know you are thinking most unselfishly of my happiness, for I have often heard you say you would never marry, but—”
“Stay a moment,” he interrupted, and in spite of the strong effort he was evidently making for calmness, his colour deepened and his voice trembled a little, “you must not give me credit for what I do not deserve. It is true I never intended to marry—such a prospect has never come into the life I had sketched out for myself. But if—if, as I think possible, marriage would be a help not a hindrance to me—and a marriage with you would, it seems to me, be so—I should not feel that I was departing from my principles or, on the other hand, that I deserved credit for unselfishness in proposing it,” he stopped again. “You can imagine that a friend—a wife—always at hand to sympathise with me in my work would make life a very different thing to me,” he added.
“But I am afraid I could not be the sort of friend—of wife—you imagine,” said Cicely gently. “I am not devoted and unworldly as you are. You think better of me than I deserve.”
“No, I do not. I am not afraid of your fitness for the work,” he replied.