“Though Rupert is such a favourite of yours,” says Sir George, with a deliberation which shows that the remark is not an impromptu, “it does not strike me that you are in any violent hurry to marry him.”
The expected has come—the fully prepared and waited for, yet it must take her at an undefended angle. Possibly it is something jibing in the shape of the question that chills away her carefully pre-constructed response.
“Does whatever in the shape of an engagement once existed between you still hold good? or have you put an end to it?”
The something of hurry and apprehension that she detects in his voice, and in which she recognizes his last bid for possible happiness, affects her so strongly that she can only give a nod, which is apparently of so doubtful an interpretation that he misunderstands it.
“Do not be afraid to tell me if you have,” he goes on with what she knows to be an unusual effort at self-control and temper. “I shall be the last person to blame you. I never could quite understand what you——”
“We belong to each other still: we always shall,” she interrupts, in a low firm voice, hastening to stop the mouth that is about to utter a too familiar formula.
A sort of relief spreads over the lined face beside her; yet there is a cavilling discontent in his repetition of her phrase.
“Belong to each other! Well, you have done that, I suppose, according to your ideas, since you were both in long clothes.”
She pauses, and a cloud seems to pass before her clear strong eyes; pauses with the feeling—an unaccountably heavy one—of being about to do something absolutely irrevocable, then speaks.
“Do you wish us to marry soon?”