Part 40 (1/2)

”And, can you have forgotten!” was the reply. ”Do you not remember, that, as we came up the hill, I put a certain

[278 ADVENTURES OF MR. VERDANT GREEN]

question to you about Mr. Delaval having proposed and having been accepted?”

”Yes! I remember it very well! And, what then?”

”And, what then!” echoed Mr. Verdant Green, in the greatest wonder at the young lady's calmness; ”what then! why, when you told me that he ~had~ been accepted, was not that sufficient for me to know? - to know that all my love had been given to one who was another's, and that all my hopes were blighted! was not this sufficient to crush me, and to change the colour of my life?” And Verdant's face showed that, though he might be quoting from his ~Legend~, he was yet speaking from his heart.

”Oh! I little expected this!” faltered Miss Patty, in real grief; ”I little thought of this. Why did you not speak sooner to some one - to me, for instance - and have spared yourself this misery? If you had been earlier made acquainted with Frederick's attachment, you might then have checked your own. I did not ever dream of this!” And Miss Patty, who had turned pale, and trembled with agitation, could not restrain a tear.

”It is very kind of you thus to feel for me!” said Verdant; ”and all I ask is, that you will still remain my friend.”

”Indeed, I will. And I am sure Kitty will always wish to be the same. She will be sadly grieved to hear of this; for, I can a.s.sure you that she had no suspicion you were attached to her.”

”Attached to HER!” cried Verdant, with vast surprise. ”What ever do you mean?”

”Have you not been telling me of your secret love for her?” answered Miss Patty, who again turned her thoughts to the champagne.

”Love for ~her~? No! nothing of the kind.”

”What! and not spoken about your grief when I told you that Frederick Delaval had proposed to her, and had been accepted?”

”Proposed to ~her~?” cried Verdant, in a kind of dreamy swoon.

”Yes! to whom else do you suppose he would propose?”

”To ~you~!”

”To ME!”

”Yes, to you! Why, have you not been telling me that you were engaged to him?”

”Telling you that ~I~ was engaged to Fred!” rejoined Miss Patty.

”Why, what could put such an idea into your head? Fred is engaged to Kitty. You asked me if it was not so; and I told you, yes, but that it was a secret at present. Why, then of whom were ~you~ talking?”

[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 279]

”Of ~you~!”

”Of ~me~?”

”Yes, of you!” And the scales fell from the eyes of both, and they saw their mutual mistake.

There was a silence, which Verdant was the first to break.

”It seems that love is really blind. I now perceive how we have been playing at cross questions and crooked answers. When I asked you about Mr. Delaval, my thoughts were wholly of you, and I spoke of you, and not of your sister, as you imagined; and I fancied that you answered not for your sister but for yourself. When I spoke of my attachment, it did not refer to your sister, but to you.”

”To me?” softly said Miss Patty, as a delicious tremor stole over her. ”To you, and to you alone,” answered Verdant. The great stumbling-block of his doubts was now removed, and his way lay clear before him. Then, after a momentary pause to nerve his determination, and without further prelude, or beating about the bush, he said, ”Patty - my dear Miss Honeywood - I love you! do you love me?”

There it was at last! The dreaded question over which he had pa.s.sed so many hours of thought, was at length spoken. The elaborate sentences that he had devised for its introduction, had all been forgotten; and his artificial flowers of oratory had been exchanged for those simpler blossoms of honesty and truth - ”I love you - do you love me?” He had imagined that he should put the question to her when they were alone in some quiet room; or, better still, when they were wandering together in some sequestered garden walk or shady lane; and, now, here he had unexpectedly, and undesignedly, found his opportunity at a pic-nic dinner, with half a hundred people close beside him, and his ears a.s.saulted with a songster's praises of piracy and murder. Strange accompaniments to a declaration of the tender pa.s.sion! But, like others before him, he had found that there was no such privacy as that of a crowd - the fear of interruption probably adding a spur to determination, while the laughter and busy talking of others a.s.sist to fill up awkward pauses of agitation in the converse of the loving couple.