"Ah, you love the country?"
"Do not you?"
"Yes, but there are better things in the world than even trees and gra.s.s."
"Ah, yes," said Lesley, eagerly. Then, with a little smile, she added; as if quoting--"Souls of men."
"I was thinking of their bodies," said the young doctor. "But that"s as it should be. You think of the spiritual, I only of the material side.
Both sides ought to be considered that is where men and women meet, I take it."
"I suppose so," said Lesley, a little vaguely.
"I"m afraid," Maurice went on, "that it will be a long time before I have a country house of my own: a place where there will be trees and green meadows and flowers, such as one loves and sighs for. I have often thought"--with a note of agitation in his voice--"how much easier it would be to ask any one to share my life if I had these good things to offer. My only chance has been to find someone who cares--as I care--for the souls and bodies of the men and women around us; who would not disdain to help me in my work."
"Who _could_ disdain it?" asked Lesley, innocently indignant.
"Do you mean"--turning suddenly upon her--"that you don"t consider a hard working doctor"s life something inexpressibly beneath you?"
She drew back a little hurt, a little bit astonished.
"Certainly not. Why should I?"
"You are born to a life of luxury and self-indulgence."
"My father is a journalist," said Lesley with a smile, in which amus.e.m.e.nt struggled with offence.
"But your grandfather was an earl! It is possible," with a touch of raillery, "that you prefer earls to general pract.i.tioners."
"Of the two, it is the doctor that leads the better life, in my opinion," said Lesley, rather hotly; but immediately cooling down, she added the remark--"My preferences have nothing much, however, to do with the matter."
"Have they not? How little you know your own power!"
Lesley looked at him in much amaze. Whither this conversation was tending it had not yet occurred to her to inquire. But something in his look, as he stood fronting her, brought the color to her cheeks and caused her eyes to sink. She became suddenly a little afraid of him, and wished herself a thousand miles away. Indeed she made one backward step, as if her maidenly instincts were about to manifest themselves in actual flight. But Maurice saw the movement, and made two steps forward, which brought him so close to her that he could have touched her hand if he had wished.
"Don"t you understand?" he said, in an agitated voice. "Don"t you see that your opinion--your preferences--are all the world to me?"
He paused as if expecting her to reply--leaning a little towards her to catch the word from her lips. But Lesley did not speak. She remained motionless, as pale now as she had been red before--her hands hanging at her sides and her eyes fixed upon the ground. She looked as if she were stricken dumb with dismay.
"I know that I have not recommended myself to you by anything that I have said or done," Maurice went on. "I misjudged you once, and I spoke roughly, rudely, brutally; but it was the way you took what I said which made me understand you. You were so fine, so n.o.ble, so sweet! Instead of making my stupidity an excuse for shutting yourself away from what your father was doing, you immediately threw yourself into it, you began to work with him and for him--as of course I might have seen that you would do directly you came to know him. I was a fool, and you were an angel--that summarizes the situation."
A faint smile curled Lesley"s lips, although she did not look up. "I am afraid there is not much of the angel about me," she said.
"Ah, you can"t see yourself as others see you," he answered, quite ignoring the implication in her remark which a less ardent lover might have resented. "To me, at any rate, you are the one woman in the world, the only one I have ever loved--shall ever love as long as I live--the fulfilment of my ideal--the realization of all my dreams!"
His vehemence made Lesley draw back.
"You exaggerate," she said with a slight shake of the head. "Indeed, I am not all that--I could not be. I am very ignorant and full of faults.
I have a bad temper----"
"You have a temper that is sweetness itself!"
"Oh, Mr. Kenyon, how can you say so?"--with a look of reproach. "You who have seen me so angry!"
"Your temper is just like your father"s," said Maurice, dogmatically. "A little hot, if you like, but sweet----"
"Something like preserved ginger?" asked Lesley.
The two young people looked at each other with laughter in their eyes.
This was Lesley"s way of trying to stave off the inevitable. If Maurice"s declaration could only be construed into idle compliment, she would be rid of the necessity of giving him a plain answer. And what had been begun as a proposal of marriage seemed likely to degenerate into a fencing match.
Maurice saw the danger, and was too quick-witted to fall unawares into the trap which Lesley had laid for him. A war of words was the very thing in which he and Ethel most delighted; and it was usually quite easy to induce brother and sister to engage upon it. But on this occasion he was too much in earnest for word-play. He laughed at Lesley"s simile, and then became suddenly and almost fiercely grave.
"I can"t let you turn the whole thing into a joke," he said. "You know that I mean what I say. It is a matter of life and death to me. I love you with my whole heart, and I come to-day to know whether there is any chance for me--whether you can honor me with your love--whether you will one day consent to be my wife."
His voice sank to a pleading tone, and his face was very pale. But he felt that a great display of emotion would frighten and repel the girl, and he therefore sedulously avoided, as far as possible, any appearance of agitation. He could not, however, entirely achieve the calmness which he desired, and the very suppression of his agitation, which, in spite of himself, made his voice shake, and brought fire to his eyes, had an unwontedly unnerving effect upon Lesley.
"Oh, I don"t know," she said hurriedly. "I can"t tell--I never thought----"
"Think now," he said persuasively. "Am I disagreeable to you?"
"No,"--very softly.
"Have you forgiven me for my bad behavior in the past?"
"You never did behave badly."
"But you have forgiven me?"
"Oh, yes."
This was illogical, as she had previously intimated that there was nothing to forgive; but, under such circ.u.mstances, Lesley may be excused.
"And--surely, then--you like me a little!"
"A little," Lesley breathed, rather than spoke, with an unconscious smile of happiness.
"Can you not call it "loving?"" asked Maurice, daring for the first time to take her soft little hand in his.
But the question, the look, the touch, suddenly terrified Lesley, and brought back to her mind a long-forgotten promise. What was it her mother had required of her before she left Paris for her father"s house? Was it not a pledge that she should not bind herself to marry any man?--that she should not engage herself to be married? Lesley had an instinctive knowledge of the fact that to proclaim her promise would be to cast discredit on Lady Alice; and so, while trying to keep her word, she sought for means to avoid telling the whole truth.
"No, oh no," she said, withdrawing her hand at once and turning away.
"Indeed, I could not. Please do not ask me anymore."
The shock was very great to Maurice. He stood perfectly silent for a moment. He had thought that he was making such good progress--and, behold! the wind had suddenly changed; the face of the heavens was overcast. He tried to think that he had been mistaken, and made another attempt to win a favorable hearing.
"Miss Brooke--Lesley--you say you like me a little. Do you not think that your liking for me might grow? When you know that I love you so tenderly, that I would lay down my very life for you, when you can hear all that I can tell you of my hopes, my dreams, my aspirations----"
"I do not want to hear," said Lesley, putting out her hand blindly.