She checked herself suddenly. She had just been going to say, 'I felt she was a lady,' but instinct taught her at once how rude and pretentious the expression would sound to him; so she altered her unspoken phrase to, 'I felt at once we should have a great deal in common.'
'I'm so glad you think so,' Dick murmured in return, growing fiery red once more, for he knew Mary was accustomed to accompany the Rectory children to the Assembly Rooms dancing lessons, where Maud' often helped her father with her violin; and he couldn't bear to think she should have seen the head of the house engaged in such an unworthy and degrading occupation. 'Well, I was just going to say, you're the only girl I ever met in my life with whom I could speak--you know what I mean--why, just speak my whole heart out.'
'It's very kind of you to say so,' Mary answered, beginning to walk much faster. She was really getting frightened now what Dick might go on to say to her.
'And so,' the young man continued, floundering on after the fashion of young men in love, 'I--I shall feel going away from you.'
Mary's heart beat fast. She liked Dick very much--oh, very much indeed; but she didn't feel quite sure it was anything more than liking. (Women, you know, make in these matters such nice distinctions.) 'You'll meet plenty of new friends,' she said faintly, 'at Oxford.'
'Oh, but that won't be at all the same!' Dick answered, trembling. 'They'll all be men, you see.' And then he paused, wondering whether perhaps he had spoken too plainly.
Mary's pace by this time had become almost unladylike, so fast was she walking. Still, just to break the awkward silence which followed Dick's last words, she felt compelled to say something. 'You'll meet plenty of girls, too, I expect,' she interposed nervously.
'Perhaps; but they won't be _you_,' Dick blurted out with a timid gasp, gazing straight into her eyes; and then recoiled, aghast, at his own exceeding temerity.
Mary blushed again and cast down her eyes. 'Don't let me take you out of your way any farther,' she said after another short pause, just to cover her confusion. 'I really _must_ get back now. Mrs. Tradescant'll be so angry.'
'Oh no; you can't go just yet!' Dick cried, growing desperate, and standing half across the path, with a man's masterful eagerness. 'Now I've once begun with it, I must say my say out to you. Miss Tudor, that very first day I ever saw you, I thought a great deal of you. You could tell I did by the mere fact that I took the trouble to make such a fool of myself over that unhappy book-cover. But the more I've seen of you, the better I've liked you. Liked you, oh, so much I can hardly tell you! And when I went up to Oxford about this Scholarship, which has given me a start in life, I thought about you so often that I really believe I owe my success in great part to you. Now, what I want to say before I go'--he paused and hesitated; it was so hard to word it--'what I want to say's just this. Perhaps you'll think it presumptuous of me; but do you feel, if I get on, and recover the place in the world that belongs by right to my family--do you feel as if there's any chance you might ever be able to care for me?'