He was in desperate earnest. "O you are so beautiful!" he cried. "So unbelievably beautiful! Come to me, my Sweet!" for she had sprung away and stood panting and looking at him, half reproachful, half angry.
"You love me, Dearest! You cannot deny it!" he cried. "And I love you—Ah! You shall know!"
He was single-hearted, sincere; stirred by a very genuine overwhelming emotion. She on the contrary was moved by many emotions at once;—a pleasure she was half ashamed of; a disappointment she could not clearly define; as if some one had told her the whole plot of a promising new novel; a sense of fear of the new hopes she had been holding, and of startled loyalty to her long-held purposes.
"Stop!" she said—for he evidently mistook her agitation, and thought her silence was consent. "I suppose I do—love you—a little; but you've no right to kiss me like that!"
His eyes shone. "You Darling! My Darling!" he said. "You will give me the right, won't you? Now, Dearest—see! I am waiting!" And he held out his arms to her.
But Rosamond was more and more displeased. "You will have to wait. I'm sorry; but I'm not ready to be engaged, yet! You know my plans. Why I'm going to Paris this year! I'm going to work! It will be ever so long before I'm ready to—to settle down."
"As to that," he said more calmly, "I cannot of course offer immediate marriage, but we can wait for that—together! You surely will not leave me—if you love me!"
"I think I love you," she said conscientiously, "at least I did think so. You've upset it all, somehow—you hurry me so!—no—I can't bind myself yet."
"Do you tell me to wait for you?" he asked; his deep voice still strong to touch her heart. "How long, Dearest?"
"I'm not asking you to wait for me—I don't want to promise anything—nor to have you. But when I have made a place—am really doing something—perhaps then—"