“Is that what you mean to-day?” she asked faintly.
“Yes.”
“But you did not mean it then?” she answered—though very gently. “It was to shield me you said it?”
He looked at her, astonished at her insight and her boldness. How different, how very different was this from that to which he had looked forward! At last, “I think I meant it,” he said gloomily. “God knows I mean it now! But that evening,” he continued, seeing that she still waited with averted face for the rest of his explanation, “he challenged me at dinner before them all, and I,” he added jerkily, “I was not quite sure what I meant—I had no mind that you should be made the talk of the—of my friends——”
“And so—you denied it?” she said gently.
He hung his head. “Yes,” he said.
“I think I—I understand,” she answered unsteadily. “What I do not understand is why you are here to-day. Why you have changed your mind again. Why you are now willing that I should be—the talk of your friends, sir.”
He stood, the picture of abasement. Must he acknowledge his doubts and his hesitation, allow that he had been ashamed of her, admit that he had deemed the marriage he now sought, a mésalliance? Must he open to her eyes those hours of cowardly vacillation during which he had walked the Clifton Woods weighing I would against I dare not? And do it in face of that new dignity, that new aloofness which he recognised in her and which made him doubt if he had an ally in her heart.
More, if he told her, would she understand? How should she, bred so differently, understand how heavily the old name with its burden of responsibilities, how heavily the past with its obligations to duty and sacrifice, had weighed upon him! And if he told her and she did not understand, what mercy had he to expect from her?
Still, for a moment he was on the point of telling her: and of telling her also why he was now free to please himself, why, rid of the burden with the inheritance, he could follow his heart. But the tale was long and roundabout, she knew nothing of the Vermuydens, of their importance, or his expectations, or what he had lost or what he had gained. And it seemed simpler to throw himself on her mercy. “Because I love you!” he said humbly. “I have nothing else to say.”