He bowed silently, and she sat down again. “Sit down, please,” she said to him. He obeyed her. “Now,” she continued, raising her hand so as to shade her eyes from the fire, “I will be candid with you, Mr. Clode. If I had no other alternative than the one you have mentioned—to choose between you and Mr. Lindo—I—I should certainly prefer you. No!” she continued sharply, bidding him with her hand to keep his seat, “hear me out, please. You have not stated the case correctly. In the first place—well, you put me in the awkward position of having to confess that Mr. Lindo has made no such proposal as you seem to fancy; and, secondly, there are others in the world.”
“I do not care,” the curate exclaimed, his deep voice trembling with exultation—“I do not care though there be millions—now!”
She moved her hand, and for a second her eyes, full of a tenderness such as he had never seen in them before, met his. The look drew him from his seat again, but she sent him back to it by an imperious gesture. “I said I would be candid,” she continued, “and I intend to be so, though until a few minutes ago I never thought that I should speak to you as I am doing.”
“You shall never repent it,” he answered fondly.
“I hope not,” she rejoined. But then she paused and was silent.
He sat waiting patiently for a while; but, as she still said nothing, he rose. “Laura,” he said.
“Yes, I know,” she answered, almost abruptly. “But candor does not come very easily, sir, under certain circumstances. Don’t you know you have made me afraid of you?”
He showed that he would have reassured her in the most convincing and practical manner. But, notwithstanding her words, she had regained her power and presence of mind, and she repelled him.
“Wait until you have heard what I have got to say,” she said. “It is this. I would not marry Mr. Lindo because he is a rector with a living and a position—not though he were six times a rector! But all the same I will not marry a curate! No,” she added in a lower tone, and with a glance which intoxicated him afresh—“not though he be you!”
He stood silent, looking down at her, waiting for more. Neither by word nor gesture did he express dissent. It is possible he already understood, and felt with her.