“I can be true,” said she, firmly and proudly, “and do not speak of myself. But——”
There was only one way of silencing her buts, and that was by stopping her mouth. I leave you to guess how I did it. There was a vast deal of blushing, tender charges of sauciness, assumptions of indignation which the eyes vowed were terrible hypocrisies, and——
But, my Eugenio, even were love-making not an amusement in which no breathing creature can take the faintest interest, save those who are concerned in it, still ought I, and do I, politely but firmly decline to set down the particulars of that dear, delightful morning. The very respectable fear of growing sentimental is one check; but another and a more violent restraint is that profound sense of what d’ye call it? with which most men recur to the nonsense they are forced to emit when the fit is on them.
However, I ought not to conceal that our conversation brought out some little secrets of great value and moment to me; of which one was the assurance that she had fallen in love with me before I left Thistlewood.
“I never suspected it,” said I.
“I don’t think,” she whispered, “that I should have been so easily conquered had I not been resolved to atone for the cruel reception I gave you, and the wicked story I told O’Twist.”
“You tried to harden your heart,” said I; “but the process that ought to have made iron of it transformed it into wax.”
“I suppose so. I am a silly creature.”
“So much the better, dearest; for were you wise I might be miserable. A woman must love a man for something; and providing he gains her love, the means by which he wins her ought not to trouble either of them.”
That afternoon we each wrote to our respective fathers. What Theresa said I don’t know; but my letter was a very candid confession of happiness.