“We may marry, but we should not be happy, I feel certain.”
“Why?”
“Because if I were your wife I could not bear to think you were out each night dancing attendance upon a crowd of foreign women at the various functions which you are in duty bound to attend.”
I smiled at her argument. Ignorant of the world and its ways, and knowing nothing of Society beyond that gossiping little circle of tea-drinkers and tennis-players which had its centre in the town of Fakenham, and had as leader the portly wife of the estimable incumbent, she saw herself neglected among the brilliant crowd in Paris as described by the so-called “Society” papers.
I hastened to reassure her, and as we strolled on through the wood and, following the meandering of the river, emerged upon the broad grass-lands before Sennowe Hall, I used every argument of which I was capable in order to dispel her absurd apprehensions. My protestations of love I repeated a hundred times, striving to impress upon her that I was actually in earnest; but she repelled me always, until of a sudden I halted beneath the willows, and, placing my arm around her slim waist, narrowly girdled by its crimson ribbon, I drew her again to me, saying:
“Tell me, Edith, plainly, whether or no you love me. These cold words of yours have struck me to the heart, and I feel somehow that in my absence you have found some other man who has your gratitude, your respect, and your love.”
She raised her hand, as though to stay the flow of my words.
“No, no!” I went on passionately. “You must hear me, for you seem to be gradually slipping away from me. You must hear me! Cast away this cold sweetness that is enough to madden any man. Give me a right to your love; give me a right to it! You cannot be indifferent to such a love as mine unless you love someone else.”
“Stop!” she cried, moved by a sudden generous impulse. “I love no one else but you.”
“And you admit that you still love me? You will be the same to me as before?” I cried eagerly.