For a moment she remained silent, her handsome head downcast.
Then slowly, with a sweet love-look upon her beautiful countenance, she raised her face to mine, and then for the first time our lips met in a fierce and passionate caress.
I remained in that cosy, book-lined den for perhaps an hour--one whole hour of sweet, delightful ecstasy.
With her fair head buried upon my shoulder she shed tears of joy, while, time after time, I smothered her white brow with my kisses. Ah! yes, I loved her. I closed my eyes to all. I put away all my dark suspicions, and lived only for the present in the knowledge that Sylvia was mine--_mine!_
My hot, fevered declarations of affection caused her to cling to me more closely, yet she uttered but few words, and those half-incoherent ones, overcome as she was by a flood of emotion. She seemed to have utterly broken down beneath the great strain, and now welcomed the peace and all-absorbing happiness of affection. Alone and friendless, as she had admitted herself to be, she had, perhaps, longed for the love of an honest man. At least, that is what I was egotistical enough to believe. Possibly I might have been wrong, for until that moment I had ever been a confirmed bachelor, and had but little experience of the fantastic workings of a woman's mind.
Like so many other men of my age, I had vainly believed myself to be a philosopher. Yet are not philosophers merely soured cynics, after all? And I certainly was neither cynical nor soured. Therefore my philosophy was but a mere ridiculous affectation to which so many men and women are prone.
But in those moments of ecstasy I abandoned myself entirely to love, imprinting lingering, passionate kisses upon her lips, her closed eyes, her wide white brow, while she returned my caresses, smiling through her hot tears.
Presently, when she grew calmer, she said in a low, sweet voice--
"I--hardly know whether this is wise. I somehow fear----"
"I fear what the future may hold for us," she answered. "Remember I--I am poor, while you are wealthy, and----"
"What does that matter, pray? Thank Heaven! I have sufficient for us both--sufficient to provide for you the ordinary comforts of life, Sylvia. I only now long for the day, dearest, when I may call you wife."