"Well, then," the girl went on, "it shall be so. We will wait. It will only be waiting. I ought to have thought of you before; I make a bad beginning," she said tremulously. "I supposed I was thinking of you; but I see that I was only thinking of myself." The tears stood in her eyes. Mrs. Bowen, quite overlooked in this apology, slipped from the room.
"Imogene!" said Colville, coming toward her.
She dropped herself upon his shoulder. "Oh, why, why, why am I so miserable?"
"Miserable, Imogene!" he murmured, stroking her beautiful hair.
"Yes, yes! Utterly miserable! It must be because I'm unworthy of you—unequal every way. If you think so, cast me off at once. Don't be weakly merciful!"
The words pierced his heart. "I would give the world to make you happy, my child!" he said, with perfidious truth, and a sigh that came from the bottom of his soul. "Sit down here by me," he said, moving to the sofa; and with whatever obscure sense of duty to her innocent self-abandon, he made a space between them, and reduced her embrace to a clasp of the hand she left with him. "Now tell me," he said, "what is it makes you unhappy?"
"Oh, I don't know," she answered, drying her averted eyes. "I suppose I am overwrought from not sleeping, and from thinking how we should arrange it all."
"And now that it's all arranged, can't you be cheerful again?"
"Yes."
"You're satisfied with the way we've arranged it? Because if—"