“And so you will not accept my mother’s friendship?” he pursued.
I shook my head with an emphasis that was some relief to my feelings, although it was not an act of courtesy to my visitor.
“Well,” and he rose as he spoke, a very tall figure in our little low room, “you surely will not taboo _me_, Miss Hayes?” he asked appealingly. “I received great kindnesses, without _question_, from your father and mother. I knew your father better than you did yourself. You have told me that you have no relatives in this country.”
“None that I know,” I quibbled, “or that know of me.”
“Yes; you said so. Now, I hope you won’t think I am taking an awful liberty if I ask you what are your plans?”
“On the contrary, it is very kind of you to inquire. I am going to London in a few days, back to our old lodgings. I shall then look about for something to do. I should not care to be a nursery governess, nor, as my landlady suggests, sing and dance at a music-hall.”
“A music-hall!” His elbow swept a little saucer crash into the fender—he was too big for our room. “The woman must be mad!”
“Yes; she confesses that she has often listened outside on the landing when I played my guitar and sang, and thinks I would ‘take,’ as she calls it.”
“But you need not be at all alarmed. I shall find some post, perhaps as clerk—I am clever at figures—perhaps as secretary. Mr. Blunt, the rector, will give me a character. I have only myself to please—no one’s wishes to consult.”
As I spoke, he had been fingering the little ornaments on the chimney-piece, with his head half turned away. Then he suddenly confronted me, and said—
“Miss Hayes, I hope what I am going to say will not startle you very much.”
I became cold all over, and my heart beat fast. Was he going to offer me money? I laid down my work to conceal my trembling hands, and looked up in his face.
“You will make me very happy if you will marry me.”
I sat for a moment speechless; then I also rose to my feet, and said in a low voice—I could not get it to sound, somehow—
“I am in earnest—in deadly earnest, Miss Hayes.”
“And every time I met you I have liked you better than the last. It began that day at the Stores. I am not a bit susceptible. I never felt drawn to any one in such a way. I have met heaps and heaps of girls, nice ones too and pretty, and gone away and forgotten them in half a day; but you I never forgot. Your memory, your face, came all the way with me out to South America, came back with me; and when I saw you sweeping down the stairs at the Moate that night, I said to myself, ‘Here she comes—_my fate_!’ My poor old governor has made an awful muddle of our affairs, and we are dreadfully hard up; but I can take one of the farms, and work it myself.” He paused suddenly, and looked at me expectantly.