Part 48 (2/2)
She shrugged her shoulders. ”It isn't any use talking,” she said. ”Your mind is made up!...”
”It is. I want to marry you, Eleanor, and I'm going to marry you. I have a lot to do in the world yet, but that's the first thing I've got to do, and I can't do anything else till I have done it. So you might as well make up your mind to it, and save a lot of time arguing about it when it's going to happen in the end!”
She pushed her cup away, and rose from her seat. ”I'm going home,” she said. ”This conversation makes me feel dizzy!”
”There's no hurry,” he exclaimed.
She spoke coldly and deliberately, ”It's not a question of hurry,” she replied. ”It's a question of desire, I _wish_ to go home. Your conversation bores and annoys me!”
”Why?”
”Because you treat me as if I were not human, and had no desires of my own. I'm to marry you, of whom I know absolutely nothing, merely because you want me to marry you. I don't know whether you are a gentleman or not. You have a very funny accent!...”
”What's wrong with my accent?” he demanded.
”I don't know. It's just funny. I've never heard an accent like that before, and so I can't tell whether you're a gentleman or not. If you were an Englishman, I should know at once, but it's different with Irish people. Your very queer manners may be quite the thing in Ireland!”
He put out his hand to her, but she drew back. ”Sit down,” he said.
”Just for a minute or two till I talk to you. I'll let you go then!”
She hesitated. Then she did as he asked her. ”Very well!” she said primly.
”Listen to me, Eleanor, I know very well that my behaviour is strange to you. It's strange to me. Till last night we'd never exchanged a dozen words. I know that. But I tell you this, if you live to be a hundred and have boys by the score, you'll never have a man that'll love you as I love you. I'm in earnest, Eleanor. I'm not codding you.
I'm not trying to humbug you. I love you. I'm desperate in love with you!...”
She leant forward a little, moved by his sincerity. ”But,” she said, and then stopped as if unable to find words, adequate to her meaning.
”There's no buts about it,” he replied. ”I love you. I don't know why I love you, and I don't care whether I know or not. All I know is that the minute I saw you, I loved you. I wanted to see you again, and I schemed to make you talk to me!...”
”Yes, and very silly your schemes were. Asking me if I wanted the _Graphic_ back again!...”
”You remember that, do you?” he asked.
”Well, it was so obvious and so stupid,” she answered.
”Listen. Tell me this. Do you believe me when I tell you I love you?
It's no use me telling you if you don't believe me!”
”It's so difficult to say!...”
”Do you believe me,” he insisted. ”Do I look like a man that would tell lies to a girl like you. Answer me that, now?”
She raised her eyes, and gazed very straightly at him. ”No,” she said; ”I don't think you would. I ... I think you mean what you say!...”
”I do, Eleanor. As true as G.o.d's in heaven, I do. Will you not believe me?”
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