"I am prepared for it, and prepared to despise it," answered the girl.
"I shall have no trouble except the fear that you will mind it." She pressed his hand as if she expected him to say something to this.
"I shall never care for it," he said, and this was true enough. "My only care will be to keep you from regretting. I have tried from the first to make you see that I was very much older than you. It would be miserable enough if you came to see it too late."
"I have never seen it, and I never shall see it, because there"s no such difference between us. It isn"t the years that make us young or old--who is it says that? No matter, it"s true. And I want you to believe it. I want you to feel that I am your youth--the youth you were robbed of--given back to you. Will you do it? Oh, if you could, I should be the happiest girl in the world." Tears of fervour dimmed the beautiful eyes which looked into his. "Don"t speak!" she hurried on. "I won"t let you till I have said it all. It"s been this idea, this hope, with me always--ever since I knew what happened to you here long ago--that you might go back in my life and take up yours where it was broken off; that I might make your life what it would have been--complete your destiny--"
Colville wrenched himself loose from the hold that had been growing more tenderly close and clinging. "And do you think I could be such a vampire as to let you? Yes, yes; I have had my dreams of such a thing; but I see now how hideous they were. You shall make no such sacrifice to me. You must put away the fancies that could never be fulfilled, or if by some infernal magic they could, would only bring sorrow to you and shame to me. G.o.d forbid! And G.o.d forgive me, if I have done or said anything to put this in your head! And thank G.o.d it isn"t too late yet for you to take yourself back."
"Oh," she murmured. "Do you think it is self-sacrifice for me to give myself to you? It"s self-glorification! You don"t understand--I haven"t told you what I mean, or else I"ve told it in such a way that I"ve made it hateful to you. Do you think I don"t care for you except to be something to you? I"m not so generous as that. You are all the world to me. If I take myself back from you, as you say, what shall I do with myself?"
"Has it come to that?" asked Colville. He sat down again with her, and this time he put his arm around her and drew her to him, but it seemed to him he did it as if she were his child. "I was going to tell you just now that each of us lived to himself in this world, and that no one could hope to enter into the life of another and complete it. But now I see that I was partly wrong. We two are bound together, Imogene, and whether we become all in all or nothing to each other, we can have no separate fate."
The girl"s eyes kindled with rapture. "Then let us never speak of it again. I was going to say something, but now I won"t say it."
"Yes, say it."
"No; it will make you think that I am anxious on my own account about appearances before people."
"You poor child, I shall never think you are anxious on your own account about anything. What were you going to say?"
"Oh, nothing! It was only--are you invited to the Phillipses" fancy ball?"
"Yes," said Colville, silently making what he could of the diversion, "I believe so."
"And are you going--did you mean to go?" she asked timidly.
"Good heavens, no! What in the world should I do at another fancy ball?
I walked about with the airy grace of a bull in a china shop at the last one."
Imogene did not smile. She faintly sighed. "Well, then, I won"t go either."
"Did you intend to go?"
"Oh no!"
"Why, of course you did, and it"s very right you should. Did you want me to go?"
"It would bore you."
"Not if you"re there." She gave his hand a grateful pressure. "Come, I"ll go, of course, Imogene. A fancy ball to please you is a very different thing from a fancy ball in the abstract."
"Oh, what nice things you say! Do you know, I always admired your compliments? I think they"re the most charming compliments in the world."
"I don"t think they"re half so pretty as yours; but they"re more sincere."
"No, honestly. They flatter, and at the same time they make fun of the flattery a little; they make a person feel that you like them, even while you laugh at them."
"They appear to be rather an intricate kind of compliment--sort of _salsa agradolce_ affair--tutti frutti style--species of moral mayonnaise."
"No--be quiet! You know what I mean. What were we talking about? Oh! I was going to say that the most fascinating thing about you always was that ironical way of yours."
"Have I an ironical way? You were going to tell me something more about the fancy ball."
"I don"t care for it. I would rather talk about you."
"And I prefer the ball. It"s a fresher topic--to me."
"Very well, then. But this I will say. No matter how happy you should be, I should always want you to keep that tone of persiflage. You"ve no idea how perfectly intoxicating it is."
"Oh yes, I have. It seems to have turned the loveliest and wisest head in the world."
"Oh, do you really think so? I would give anything if you did."
"What?"
"Think I was pretty," she pleaded, with full eyes. "Do you?"
"No, but I think you are wise. Fifty per cent, of truth--it"s a large average in compliments. What are you going to wear?"
"Wear? Oh! At the ball! Something Egyptian, I suppose. It"s to be an Egyptian ball. Didn"t you understand that?"
"Oh yes. But I supposed you could go in any sort of dress."
"You can"t. You must go in some Egyptian character."
"How would Moses do? In the bulrushes, you know. You could be Pharaoh"s daughter, and recognise me by my three hats. And toward the end of the evening, when I became very much bored, I could go round killing Egyptians."
"No, no. Be serious. Though I like you to joke, too. I shall always want you to joke. Shall you, always?"
"There may be emergencies when I shall fail--like family prayers, and grace before meat, and dangerous sickness."
"Why, of course. But I mean when we"re together, and there"s no reason why you shouldn"t?"
"Oh, at such times I shall certainly joke."
"And before people, too! I won"t have them saying that it"s sobered you--that you used to be very gay, and now you"re cross, and never say anything."
"I will try to keep it up sufficiently to meet the public demand."
"And I shall want you to joke me, too. You must satirise me. It does more to show me my faults than anything else, and it will show other people how perfectly submissive I am, and how I think everything you do is just right."
"If I were to beat you a little in company, don"t you think it would serve the same purpose?"
"No, no; be serious."
"About joking?"
"No, about me. I know that I"m very intense, and you must try to correct that tendency in me."