She was busy with the long stem of the rose when he came up; she broke it short and straightened up, smiling a little greeting, for she could not have spoken for her life.
“Will you marry me?” he asked, under his breath.
Then the slow, clear words came, “I cannot.”
“I love you,” he said, as though he had not heard her. “There is nothing for me in life without you; from the moment you came into my life there was nothing else, nothing in heaven or earth but you—your loveliness, your beauty, your hair, your hands, the echo of your voice haunting me, the memory of your every step, your smile, the turn of your head—all that I love in you—and all that I worship—your sweetness, your loyalty, your bravery, your honor. Give me all this to guard, to adore—try to love me; forget my faults, forgive all that I lack. I know—I know what I am—what little I have to offer—but it is all that I am, all that I have. Constance! Constance! Must you refuse?”
“Did I refuse?” she faltered. “I don’t know why I did.”
With bare arm bent back and hand pressed over the hand that held her waist imprisoned, she looked up into his eyes. Then their lips met.
“Say it,” he whispered.
“Say it? Ah, I do say it: I love you—I love you. I said it years ago—when you were a boy and I wore muslin gowns above my knees. Did you think I had not guessed it?… And you told father to-night—you told him, because I never heard him laugh that way before.… And you are Jack—my boy that I loved when I was ten—my boy lover? Ah, Jack, I was never deceived.”
He drew her closer and lifted her flushed face. “I told your father—yes. And I told him that we would go South with him.”
“You—you dared assume that!—before I had consented!” she cried, exasperated.