She spoke eagerly, and with the peculiar, bright girlishness really natural to her, which was one of her greatest charms.
Despard looked at her; her voice and manner helped him a little to throw off the curious sensation of unreality. But he was, though he scarcely knew it, becoming inwardly more and more wrought up.
“I should have liked to see him exceedingly,” he began, “any one so dear to you. I may hope some other time, perhaps, to do so? I—I was thinking of you when I first caught sight of you just now, Miss Ford—indeed, I have done nothing—upon my word, you may believe me—I have done little else than think of you since we last met.”
The girl’s face grew strangely still and intent, yet with a wistful look in the eyes telling of feelings not to be easily read. It was as if she were listening, in spite of herself, for something she still vaguely hoped she was mistaken in expecting.
“Indeed,” she began to say, but he interrupted her.
“No,” he said, “do not speak till you have heard me. I had made up my mind to it before I met you just now. I was just wondering how and when it could be. But now that this opportunity has come so quickly I will not lose it. I love you—I have loved you for longer than I knew myself, than I would own to myself—”
“From the very first, from that evening at Mrs Englewood’s?” she said, and but for his intense preoccupation, he would have been startled by her tone.
“Yes,” he said simply, yet with a strain of retrospection in his eyes, as if determined to control himself and speak nothing but the unexaggerated truth—“yes, I almost think it began that first evening, rude, brutally rude as I was to you. I would not own it—I struggled against it, for I did not want to marry. I had no thought of it. I am selfish, very selfish, I fear, and I preferred to keep clear of all ties and responsibilities, which too often become terribly galling on small means. I am no hero—but now—you will forgive my hesitation and—and reluctance, will you not? You are generous I know, and my frankness will not injure me with you, will it? You will believe that I loved you almost from the first, though I could not all at once make up my mind to marrying on small means? And now—now that I understand—that—that all seems different to me—that nothing seems of consequence except to hear you say you love me, as—as I have thought sometimes—Maisie—you will not be hard on me?—”
He stopped; he could have gone on much longer, and there was nothing now outwardly to interrupt him. She had stood there motionless, listening. Her face he could scarcely see, it was half turned away, but that seemed not unnatural. What then caused his sudden misgiving?
“Maisie,” he repeated more timidly.