“This,” replied Caerleon, promptly, taking her hands in his and kissing her. “Why do you want me to punish myself?”
“Don’t—please don’t,” cried Nadia, bursting into tears again. “You don’t know all the wicked things I have thought. I believed that you had been consulting Lord Cyril about the kingdom, and that he had advised you to do just as you liked, and not care whether it was right or wrong. I know he doesn’t like me, and I thought he would be glad to get you to do anything that I wanted you not to do. I meant to refuse you again, even if it broke my heart.”
“And I haven’t a doubt you’d have done it,” said Caerleon, “but you are a little hard on Cyril. It is due to him that we have had this explanation at all, for he told me he was sure that there was something that came between us, and advised me to speak to you. And you do believe me now, dear, don’t you?”
“Indeed I do,” said Nadia, smiling through her tears, “and I hope you will always be my friend; but I am not going to marry you. I am such a wretch. I shall make your life miserable.”
“Are you going to start with that determination?” asked Caerleon, “because it would be rude of me to say that you couldn’t make me miserable if you tried. But if you are only judging from past experience—well, I have been making you cry just now, but I hope I shan’t be such a brute as to do it again. We must both turn over a new leaf.”
“At any rate,” said Nadia, with tremendous resolution, “I know what I shall do. I will make it a matter of conscience always to obey any order or suggestion of yours without the slightest hesitation. It only makes trouble when I try to settle things for myself.”
“What!” cried Caerleon, stepping back a pace and looking at her in consternation, “do you intend to use me as a means of self-discipline? I can’t stand that. And who talks about orders? You certainly have a most unflattering opinion of me, Nadia. Am I such a tyrant as all that? Haven’t I made you understand yet that what made me take to you at the very first was that you looked at things so differently from myself? I want you to differ from me. I want you to criticise my plans, to show me where I am wrong, to tell me how everything strikes you. Then we can thresh the matter out together, and decide it by our joint wisdom. But tell me, do you really look upon me as such a fearful despot?”
“It’s not that,” said Nadia, slowly. “It is only that I feel I ought to obey you—that I should like it—because you are so good, and I have treated you so badly, and——”
But her further reasons for obedience cannot be known, for Caerleon interrupted her suddenly and forcibly, and it was some little time before she freed herself and spoke again.
“But would you really like me to marry you, Carlino?” She brought out the name with an effort, and yet from her lips it sounded like a caress. “I have thought lately that you must certainly have left off caring for me.”