And Gilbert felt the blood rushing through his veins as he would have thought impossible an hour ago. The knowledge of her liking, her nearness to him, seemed to make a little hammer pound away in his head, so that he had to set his teeth not to let himself get giddy. And Gilbert, when roused, had a good deal of the masculine animal in him, only he was so seldom roused. When he was a youth at Oxford his very clear and reasonable brain had warned him of a possible danger to his working powers in the delights of the flesh, and he had made himself not think about them by grinding away at his books. His work and his intellect had become an almost invulnerable armour. But to-night passion took him by the throat and he could think of nothing but the lissome pretty body in his arms. And his intellect, not quite drugged, approved of this diversion. His mother had said it was time to marry. Why not combine pleasure and duty? His reason quite approved of this proceeding.
“Claudia,” he said breathlessly, coming to a standstill, “it’s confoundedly hot in here. Don’t you feel it. Shall we—shall we try for some fresh air?”
She nodded, she did not want to speak. A beautiful dream had been roughly broken into. She had been happy in her unsubstantial dream; he—had not.
Gilbert was lucky enough to find an untenanted cosy corner in a convenient angle that cut them off from the rest of the world.
“Claudia, will you?” His arm was round the back of the couch ready to take her in his arms.
“Will I—what?” faltered the girl. She knew what he would ask, but she had not imagined being proposed to thus. She had thought the man she could love would lead up gradually with protestations, with promises, with entreaties. Why did there seem no time for this? Why did something hurry her into his arms, something irresistibly compelling, stronger than herself?
“Will you marry me?” She tried to raise her eyes to his, and perhaps he caught a glimpse of what was in them for the next instant she felt his lips on hers, and the world rocked and then stood still.
Afterwards, she wished that it had been more as her imagination had planned. Though every pulse in her body still throbbed with his kisses, she yet vaguely regretted that Prince Charming had not come in the guise she had imagined. But that it was the real Prince Charming—in somewhat of a hurry and a little inarticulate—she did not doubt for a moment.
“But nothing is just as one imagines it will be,” said Claudia to herself and the pillow that night. And having discovered that truth, Nature kindly pulled down the blinds and she went to sleep.