Fred was not skilled in love-making. It had always been a thing he had wished, to feel himself under the influence of a grand passion: but he had never arrived at it till now; and all the little speeches which no doubt he had prepared failed him in the genuine force of feeling.
He stammered a little, looked at her glowing with tremulous emotion, then burst forth suddenly, “O Effie, forgive me; I cannot go on in that way. This is just all, that I’ve loved you ever since that first moment at Allonby when the room was so dark. I could scarcely see you in your white dress. Effie! it is not that I mean to be bold, to presume—I can’t help it. It has been from the first moment. I shall never be happy unless—unless——”
He put his hand quickly, furtively, with a momentary touch upon hers which held the rose, and then stood trembling to receive his sentence. Effie understood at last. She stood still for a moment panic-stricken, raising bewildered eyes to his. When he touched her hand she started and drew a step away from him, but found nothing better to say than a low frightened exclamation, “O Mr. Fred!”
“I have startled you. I know I ought to have begun differently, not to have brought it out all at once. But how could I help it? Effie! won’t you give me a little hope? Don’t you know what I mean? Don’t you know what I want? O Effie! I am much older than you are, and I have been about the world a long time, but I have never loved any one but you.”
Effie did not look at him now. She took her rose in both her hands and fixed her eyes upon that.
“You are very kind, you are too, too—— I have done nothing that you should think so much of me,” she said.
“Done nothing? I don’t want you to do anything; you are yourself, that is all. I want you to let me do everything for you. Effie, you understand, don’t you, what I mean?”
“Yes,” she said, “I think I understand: but I have not thought of it like that. I have only thought of you as a——”
Here she stopped, and her voice sank, getting lower and lower as she breathed out the last monosyllable. As a friend, was that what she was going to say? And was it true? Effie was too sincere to finish the sentence. It had not been quite as a friend: there had been something in the air—But she was in no position to reply to this demand he made upon her. It was true that she had not thought of it. It had been about her in the atmosphere, that was all.