‘Yes—What did you say?’
‘I said Juliet.’
She laughed in a half-proud way, and murmured: ‘Your father is my father’s enemy, and my father is mine. Yes, it is so.’ And then their eyes caught each other’s glance. ‘My queenly darling!’ he burst out; ‘instead of going to your aunt’s, will you come and marry me?’
A flush covered her over, which seemed akin to a flush of rage. It was not exactly that, but she was excited. She did not answer, and he feared he had mortally offended her dignity. Perhaps she had only made use of him as a convenient aid to her intentions. However, he went on— ‘Your father would not be able to reclaim you then! After all, this is not so precipitate as it seems. You know all about me, my history, my prospects. I know all about you. Our families have been neighbours on that isle for hundreds of years, though you are now such a London product.’
‘Will you ever be a Royal Academician?’ she asked musingly, her excitement having calmed down.
‘I hope to be—I WILL be, if you will be my wife.’
His companion looked at him long.
‘Think what a short way out of your difficulty this would be,’ he continued. ‘No bother about aunts, no fetching home by an angry father.’
It seemed to decide her. She yielded to his embrace.
‘How long will it take to marry?’ Miss Bencomb asked by-and-by, with obvious self-repression.