"No; not yet. Sit down here. I shall not keep you long—a woman who wants none of me. But I have much to say—explanations, ah, much to say." She sat down.
"I will hear thee, but—"
"Oh, you will hear me? Yes, because you must? Go, if you will. It will be my answer."
"I think the time and the place ill chosen,"—she spoke with simple dignity,—"but I will hear thee."
"I have had no chance but this. You must pardon me." She looked down and listened. "It is a simple matter. I have loved you long. No other love has ever troubled my life. Save my mother, I have no one. What might have been the loves for brothers and sisters are all yours, a love beyond all other loves, the love of a lonely man. Whether or not you permit me to be something more, I shall still owe you a debt the years can never make me forget—the remembrance of what my life beside you in your home has given me."
The intent face, the hands clasped in her lap, might have shown him how deeply she was moved; for now at last that she had heard him she knew surely that she loved him. The long discipline of Friends in controlling at least the outward expression of emotion came to her aid as often before. She felt how easy it would have been to give him the answer he longed for; but there were others to think about, and from her childhood she had been taught the lesson of consideration for her elders. She set herself to reply to him with stern repression of feeling not very readily governed.
"How can I answer thee? What would thy mother say?" He knew then what her answer might have been. She, too, had her pride, and he liked her the more for that.
"Thou art a French noble. I am a plain Quaker girl without means. There would be reason in the opposition thy mother would make."
"A French noble!" he laughed. "A banished exile, landless and poor—a pretty match I am. But, Pearl, the future is mine. I have succeeded here, where my countrymen starve. I have won honor, respect, and trust. I would add love."
"I know, I know; but—"