“That, madame, is what troubles me,” I confessed in anguish, for her words had burst the bubble of my courage.
“Of course you cannot tell till you try,” she said, demurely, looking straight before her, no smile on the corners of her lips, that somehow maddened by their look of pliancy.
“You know whom I mean,” I said, pursuing my plea, whose rustic simplicity let no man mock at, remembering the gawky errors of his own experience.
“There’s Bell, the minister’s niece, and there’s Kilblaan’s daughter, and——”
“Oh, my dear! my dear!” I cried, stopping and putting my hand daringly on her shoulder. “You know it is not any of these; you must know I mean yourself. Here am I, a man travelled, no longer a youth, though still with the flush of it, no longer with a humility to let me doubt myself worthy of your best thoughts; I have let slip a score of chances on this same path, and even now I cannot muster up the spirit to brave your possible anger.”
She laughed a very pleasant soothing laugh and released her shoulder. “At least you give me plenty of warning,” she said.
“I am going to kiss you now,” I said, with great firmness.
She walked a little faster, panting as I could hear, and I blamed myself that I had alarmed her.
“At least,” I added, “I’ll do it when we get to Bealloch-an-uarain well.”
She hummed a snatch of Gaelic song we have upon that notable well, a song that is all an invitation to drink the waters while you are young and drink you may, and I suddenly ventured to embrace her with an arm. She drew up with stern lips and back from my embrace, and Elrigmore was again in torment.