The next day she went to Paul full of the scheme. Had he ever thought of it? He took her hands and smiled in his gay, irresistible way. "Of course, dearest lady," he said frankly. "But I would have cut out my tongue sooner than suggest it."
"I know that, my dear boy."
"And yet," said he, "I can't bear the idea of tearing myself away from you. It seems like black ingratitude."
"It isn't. You forget that James and I have our little ambitions too—the ambition of a master for a favourite pupil. If you were a failure we should both be bitterly disappointed. Don't you see? And as for leaving us—why need you? We should miss you horribly. You've never been quite our paid servant. And now you're something like our son." Tears started in the sweet lady's clear eyes. "Even if you did go to your own chambers, I shouldn't let our new secretary have this room"—they were in what the household called "the office"—really Paul's luxuriously furnished private sitting room, which contained his own little treasures of books and pictures and bits of china and glass accumulated during the six years of easeful life—"He will have the print room, which nobody uses from one year's end to another, and which is far more convenient for the street door. And the same at Drane's Court. So when you no longer work for us, my dear boy, our home will be yours, as long as you're content to stay, just because we love you."
Her hand was on his shoulder and his head was bent. "God grant," said he, "that I may be worthy of your love."
He looked up and met her eyes. Her hand was still on his shoulder. Then very simply he bent down and kissed her on the cheek.
He told his Princess all about it. She listened with dewy eyes. "Ah, Paul," she said. "That 'precious seeing' of love—I never had it till you came. I was blind. I never knew that there were such beautiful souls as Ursula Winwood in the world."
"Dear, how I love you for saying that!" cried Paul.
"But it's true."
"That is why," said he.