“Are you surprised?” asked Philippa, with tender raillery. “Does delicate, beautiful work like this appeal to the multitude?”
Nevern smiled deprecatingly, but his heart bounded.
“You mustn’t say such charming things,” he stammered. “You make me——” He checked himself and hurriedly drank his tea.
“I don’t know which is my favorite,” she went on, thoughtfully, turning the leaves of the book. “This, perhaps, with its beautiful refrain.” She read the lines softly, while Nevern trembled with happiness. “Or this. But they are all exquisite.” She continued to turn the leaves with her long, delicate fingers, with a touch like a caress, while she talked. The sound of her voice was music in the young man’s ears, the flattery of her words an intoxication. He was sometimes conscious that he spoke at random, while his eyes were on her face, and then he flushed and pulled himself together, but she did not seem to notice his temporary lapses; her eyes met his, limpid, full of sympathy, deeper than the depths of waters stilled at even. He found himself repeating the lines to himself while she was giving him a second cup of tea. His hand touched hers as she passed it, and his own shook so that some of the tea was spilled. A drop or two splashed onto Philippa’s velveteen gown. With an exclamation of impatience for his clumsiness, Nevern fell on his knees and, snatching out his handkerchief, wiped away the stain.
“Your beautiful dress!” he murmured. Suddenly he stooped lower and kissed it. She did not move, and, emboldened, he touched her hand with his lips, tremblingly at first, and then passionately.
When he raised his head she was looking at him with an adorable expression of compassion and tenderness.
“Philippa!” he stammered; “I love you. Will you—will you marry me? Oh, you don’t know how I——”
For a moment she continued to look at him with an expression he found hard to read, then she rose abruptly, and moving to the mantelpiece, stood leaning against it with averted face.
Nevern also rose. For a moment he hesitated, then drawing himself up he followed her.
“Philippa,” he said again very simply, “I know I’m not worthy of you. But no one will ever love you better than I love you. Will you marry me?” His boyishness dropped from him as he spoke. Of his customary rather foolish affectation of voice and manner, there was not a trace. A real emotion had given him dignity.