“When you have the right—when you have gained the right, if ever—you may blame me.”
Was he deceived? Was it the fact or only his fancy, a mere will-o’-the-wisp inviting him to trouble that led him to imagine that she looked at him queerly? With a mingling of raillery and tenderness, with a tear and a smile, with something in her eyes that he had never seen in them before? With—with—but her face was in shadow, she had her back to the blaze that filled the room with dancing lights, and his thoughts were in a turmoil of confusion. “I wish I knew,” he said in a low voice, “what you meant by that?”
“By what?”
“By what you have just said. Did you mean that now that he—now that Audley is out of the way, there was a chance for me?”
“A chance for you?” she repeated. She stared at him in seeming astonishment.
“Don’t play with me!” he cried, advancing upon her. “You understand me? You understand me very well! Yes, or no, Mary?”
She did not flinch. “There is no chance for you,” she answered slowly, still confronting him. “If there be a second chance for me——”
“Ah!”
“For me, Peter?” And with that her tone told him all, all there was to tell. “If you are willing to take me second-hand,” she continued, with a tremulous laugh, “you may take me. I don’t deserve it, but I know my own mind now. I have known it since the day my uncle died and I heard your step come through the hall. And if you are still willing?”
He did not answer her, but he took her. He held her to him, his heart too full for anything but a thankfulness beyond speech, while she, shaken out of her composure, trembled between tears and laughter. “Peter! Peter!” she said again and again. And once, “We are the same height, Peter!” and so showed him a new side of her nature which thrilled him with surprise and happiness.