“But, Arthur,” she protested, almost too much surprised for words, “I had no idea——”
“Come, don’t say that! Don’t say that, Jos dear! No idea? Why, hasn’t it always been this way with us! Since the day that we cut our names on the old pew? Haven’t I seen you blush like a rose when you looked at it—many and many a time? And if I haven’t dared to make love to you of late, surely you have known what was in my mind? Have we not always been meaning this—you and I?”
She was thunder-struck. Had it been really so? Could he be right? Had she been blind, and had he been feeling all this while she guessed nothing of it? She looked at him in distress, in increasing distress. “But indeed, indeed,” she said, “I have not been meaning it, Arthur, I have not, indeed!”
“Not?” incredulously. “You’ve not known that I——”
“No!” she protested. “And I don’t think that it has always been so with us.” Then, collecting herself and in a firmer voice, “No, Arthur, not lately, I am sure. I don’t think that it has been so on your side—I don’t, indeed. And I’m sure that I have not thought of this myself.”
“Jos!”
“No, Arthur, I have not, indeed.”
“You haven’t seen that I loved you?”
“No. And,” looking him steadily in the face, “I am not sure that you do.”
“Then let me tell you that I do. I do!” And he tried to possess himself of her other hand, and there was a little struggle between them. “Dear, dear girl, I do love you,” he swore. “And I want you, I want you for my wife. And your father permits it. Do you understand—I don’t think you do? He sanctions it.”