“Ah! Have a care, sir!” she broke in, as his voice hung for a moment in choice for a word, and she looked up archly, with something in her eyes that startled him.
“Cordelia!” he cried, gazing now without flinching, “I can not believe that you would trifle with me. I can not believe that you could find it in your heart to make light of the holiest feelings—the purest and loftiest aspirations of my soul. Something tells me—I see it in your face—in your kindly smile—that you will not be offended if I confess to you the one deep controlling sentiment of my heart. I can make the confession, and then bid you farewell. Ah! if—But why complain? I must suffer. And yet I would not lose the memory of this blessed hour for all the world beside! Cordelia, could I have been with you all these years—so intimate—our companionship so close and trusting—could I have lived through it all without—without—loving you? Are you very angry?”
She looked up, and smiled divinely through her tears—looked up, and clung still more closely to his side.
“Percy, do you think you alone have the capacity to love? Do you think I would have associated with you all these years if I had not found in you one whom I could honor and respect? And, dear Percy, how could I honor and respect one like you, without loving?”
“Cordelia! Oh, do not let me mistake! Do you understand me? Do you know what my love means? Oh, if I were to pour out the whole volume of my love—”
“Well—what would you say? Would you call me by another name?”
“Yes! Yes! Oh, my darling! my angel!”
“Percy,” looking straight up into his eyes, with a wealth of love in her beautiful face which no mortal could have doubted—“I will not trifle; I will not mince words. I know what you mean; and when I tell you, from the uttermost depths of my heart, that your words have made me happier than I was before—happier than I had thought I could ever be—when I tell you that, you will know that I, too, have learned to love. Oh, Percy, I have loved you from the first; and I believe it has been the same with you.”
“Yes, yes. Oh, how I have loved you, Cordelia! But I had never dared to dream of this. I can scarcely believe it even now. Shall I awake and find it a dream?”
“If the dream makes you as happy as it makes me, dear Percy, I can only say—dream on.”