Silverbridge, when the door was closed, stood looking at the girl for a moment and thought that she was more lovely than ever. She was dressed for walking. She still had on her fur jacket, but had taken off her hat. 'I was in the parlour downstairs,' she said, 'when you came in, with papa; and we were going out together; but when I heard who was here, I made him go alone. Was I not good?'
He had not thought of a word to say, or a thing to do;--but he felt as he looked at her that the only thing in the world worth living for, was to have her for his own. For a moment he was half-abashed. Then in the next she was close in his arms with his lips pressed to hers. He had been so sudden that she had been unable, at any rate thought that she had been unable to repress him. 'Lord Silverbridge,' she said, 'I told you I would not have it. You have offended me.'
'Isabel!'
'Yes; Isabel! Isabel is offended with you. Why did you do it?'
Why did he do it? It seemed to him to be the most unnecessary question. 'I want you to know how I love you.'
'Will that tell me? That only tells me how little you think of me.'
'Then it tells you a falsehood;--for I am thinking of you always.
And I always think of you as being the best and dearest and sweetest thing in the world. And now I think you dearer and sweeter than ever.' Upon this she tried to frown; but her frown at once broke out into a smile. 'When I wrote to say that I was coming why did you not stay at home for me this morning?'
'I got no letter, Lord Silverbridge.'
'Why didn't you get it?'
'That I cannot say, Lord Silverbridge.'
'Isabel, if you are so formal, you will kill me.'
'Lord Silverbridge, if you are so forward, you will offend me.'
Then it turned out that no letter from him had reached the house; and as the letter had been addressed to Bruton Street instead of Brook Street, the failure on the part of the post-office was not surprising.
Whether or no she was offended or he killed remained with her the whole afternoon. 'Of course I love you,' she said. 'Do you suppose I should be here with you if I did not, or that you could have remained in the house after what you did just now? I am not given to run into rhapsodies quite so much as you are,--and being a woman perhaps it is as well that I don't. But I think I can be quite as true to you as you are to me.'
'I am so much obliged to you for that,' he said, grasping at her hand.
'But I am sure that rhapsodies won't do any good. Now I'll tell you my mind.'
'You know mine,' said Silverbridge.
'I will take it for granted that I do. Your mind is to marry me will ye nil ye, as the people say.' He answered this by merely nodding his head and getting a little nearer to her. 'That is all very well in its way, and I am not going to say but what I am gratified.' Then he did grasp her hand. 'If it pleases you to hear me say so, Lord Silverbridge--'
'Not Lord!'
'Then I shall call you Plantagenet;--only it sounds so horribly historical. Why are you not Thomas or Abraham? But if it will please you to hear me say so, I am ready to acknowledge that nothing in all my life ever came near to the delight I have in your love.' Hereupon he almost succeeded in getting his arm round her waist. But she was strong, and seized his hand and held it.
'And I speak no rhapsodies. I tell you a truth which I want you to know and to keep to your heart,--so that you may be always, always sure to.
'I will never doubt it.'
'But that marrying will ye nill ye, will not suit me. There is so much wanted for happiness in life.'
'I will do all that I can.'
'Yes. Even though it be hazardous, I am willing to trust you. If you were as other men are, if you could do as you please as lower men may do, I would leave father and mother and my own country,--that I might be your wife. I would do that because I love you. But what will my life be here, if they who are your friends turn their backs upon me? What will your life be, if, through all that, you continued to love me?'
'That will all come right.'
'And what will your life be, or mine,' she said, going on with her own thoughts without seeming to have heard his last words, 'if in such a condition as that you did not continue to love me?'
'I should always love you.'
'It might be very hard:--and if once felt to be hard, then impossible. You have not looked at it as I have done. Why should you? Even with a wife that was a trouble to you--'
'Oh, Isabel!'
His arm was now round her waist, but she continued speaking as though she were not aware of the embrace. 'Yes, a trouble! I shall not be always just what I am now. Now I can be bright and pretty and hold my own with others because I am so. But are you sure,--I am not,--that I am such stuff as an English lady should be made of? If in ten years' time you found that others did not think so,--that, worse again, you did not think so yourself, would you be true to me then?'
'I will always be true to you.'