Part 26 (2/2)
He repeated the lines as he stood watching her, and then he went nearer and called:
”Madaline!”
Could he doubt that she loved him? Her fair face flushed deepest crimson; but, instead of turning to him, she moved half coyly, half shyly away.
”How quick you are,” he said, ”to seize every opportunity of evading me! Do you think you can escape me, Madaline? Do you think my love is so weak, so faint, so feeble, that it can be pushed aside lightly by your will? Do you think that, if you tried to get to the other end of the world, you could escape me?”
Half blus.h.i.+ng, half laughing, trembling, yet with a happy light in her blue eyes, she said:
”I think you are more terrible than any one I know.”
”I am glad that you are growing frightened, and are willing to own that you have a master--that is as it should be. I want to talk to you, Madaline. You evade me lest you should be compelled to speak to me; you lower those beautiful eyes of yours, lest I should be made happy by looking into them. If you find it possible to avoid my presence, to run away from me, you do. I am sure to woo you, to win you, to make you my sweet, dear wife--to make you happier, I hope, than any woman has ever been before--and you try to evade me, fair, sweet, cruel Madaline!”
”I am afraid of you, Lord Arleigh,” she said, little dreaming how much the nave confession implied.
”Afraid of me! That is because you see that I am quite determined to win you. I can easily teach you how to forget all fear.”
”Can you?” she asked, doubtfully.
”Yes, I can, indeed, Madaline. Deposit those peaches in their green leaves on the ground. Now place both your hands in mine.”
She quietly obeyed the first half of his request as though she were a child, and then she paused. The sweet face crimsoned again; he took her hands in his.
”You must be obedient,” he said. ”Now look at me.”
But the white lids drooped over the happy eyes.
”Look at me, Madaline,” he repeated, ”and say, 'Norman, I do love you. I will forget all the nonsense I have talked about inequality of position, and will be your wife.'”
”In justice to yourself I cannot say it.”
He felt the little hands tremble in his grasp, and he released them with a kiss.
”You will be compelled to say it some day, darling. You might as well try now. If I cannot win you for my wife, I will have no wife, Madaline.
Ah, now you are sorry you have vexed me!
”'And so it was--half sly, half shy; You would and would not, little one, Although I pleaded tenderly And you and I were all alone.'
Why are you so hard, Madaline? I am sure you like me a little; you dare not raise your eyes to mine and say, 'I do not love you, Norman.'”
”No,” she confessed, ”I dare not. But there is love and love; the lowest love is all self, the highest is all sacrifice. I like the highest.”
And then her eyes fell on the peaches, and she gave a little cry of alarm.
”What will the d.u.c.h.ess say?” she cried. ”Oh, Lord Arleigh, let me go.”
”Give me one kind word, then.”
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