Upon which the bewildered fellow poured forth a flood of ascriptions of praise and pæans of victory, and compared Kate, who knew she was no angel, to all the deities and excellences ever known to man. She listened to it all patiently, and then shook her head with gentle half-maternal tolerance.
“Well,” she said, “let us take all that for granted, you know. Of course I am everything that is nice. If you did not think so you would be a savage; but, John, please don’t be foolish. Tell me properly. I have gone and given in to you when I did not mean to. And now, what do you want?”
“I want you,” he said; “have you any doubt about that? And, except for your sake, I don’t care for anything else in the world.”
“Oh, but I care for a great many things,” said Kate. “And, John,” she went on, joining both her hands on his arm, and leaning her head lightly against it in her caressing way, “first of all, you have accepted my conditions, you know, and taken my advice?”
“Yes, my darling,” said John; and then somehow his eye was caught by the lights in the windows so close at hand, the one in the library, the other in the drawing-room, where sat his parents, who had the fullest confidence in him; and he gave a slight start and sigh in spite of himself.
“Perhaps you repent your bargain already,” said impetuous Kate, being instantly conscious of both start and sigh, and of the feeling which had produced them.
“Ah! how can you speak to me so,” he said, “when you know if it was life I had to pay for it I would do it joyfully? No; even if I had never seen you I could not have done what they wanted me. That is the truth. And now I have you, my sweetest——”
“Hush,” she said, softly, “we have not come to that yet. There is a great deal, such a great deal, to think about; and there is papa——”
“And I have so little to offer,” said John; “it is only now I feel how little. Ah! how five minutes change everything! It never came into my mind that I had nothing to offer you—I was so full of yourself. But now!—you who should have kingdoms laid at your feet—what right had a penniless fellow like me——”
“If you regret you can always go back,” said Kate, promptly; “though, you know, it is a kind of insinuation against me, as if I had consented far too easy. And, to tell the truth, I never did consent.”