“My dear,” said he, at last.
“Yes?” said Clementina.
“Why shouldn’t we have her always with us?”
“You mean——?” said Clementina, after a pause, and still looking into the fire.
“Even with her, I can’t face that great lonely house. I can’t face my empty, lonely existence. My dear,” said he, bending forward in his chair; “it has come to this—that I can’t think a thought or feel an emotion without you becoming inextricably interwoven with it. You have grown into the texture of my life. I know I may be impertinent and presumptuous in putting such a proposal before you——”
“You haven’t put one yet,” said Clementina.
“It is that you would do me the honour of marrying me,” replied Quixtus.
Again there was silence. For the first time in her life she was afraid to speak, lest she should betray the commotion in her being. She loved him. She did not hide the fact from herself. It was not the mad, gorgeous passion of romance; she knew it for something deeper, stronger, based on essentials. He lay deeply rooted in her heart, half child for her mothering, all man for her loving. When had she begun to care for him? She scarcely knew. Perhaps at Marseilles, when he had returned to her for companionship and they had walked out arm in arm. She knew that he spoke truly of his need of her. But the words that mattered, the foolish little words; he had not uttered.
“Do you care for me enough to marry me?” she asked, at last.
He glanced at Sheila weighing out matches in her toy scales. It is difficult to carry on a love-scene with conviction in the presence of a third party, even of that of a beloved child of five.