New Grub Street Part 73

She rose, and went towards the chair on which lay her out-of-door things. At once Jasper stepped to her side.

'You will go without giving me any answer?'

'Answer? To what?'

'Will you be my wife?'

'It is too soon to ask me that.'

'Too soon? Haven't you known for months that I thought of you with far more than friendliness?'

'How was it possible I should know that? You have explained to me why you would not let your real feelings be understood.'

The reproach was merited, and not easy to be outfaced. He turned away for an instant, then with a sudden movement caught both her hands.

'Whatever I have done or said or thought in the past, that is of no account now. I love you, Marian. I want you to be my wife. I have never seen any other girl who impressed me as you did from the first. If I had been weak enough to try to win anyone but you, I should have known that I had turned aside from the path of my true happiness. Let us forget for a moment all our circ.u.mstances. I hold your hands, and look into your face, and say that I love you. Whatever answer you give, I love you!'

Till now her heart had only fluttered a little; it was a great part of her distress that the love she had so long nurtured seemed shrinking together into some far corner of her being whilst she listened to the discourses which prefaced Jasper's declaration. She was nervous, painfully self-conscious, touched with maidenly shame, but could not abandon herself to that delicious emotion which ought to have been the fulfilment of all her secret imaginings. Now at length there began a throbbing in her bosom. Keeping her face averted, her eyes cast down, she waited for a repet.i.tion of the note that was in that last 'I love you.' She felt a change in the hands that held hers--a warmth, a moist softness; it caused a shock through her veins.

He was trying to draw her nearer, but she kept at full arm's length and looked irresponsive.

'Marian?'

She wished to answer, but a spirit of perversity held her tongue.

'Marian, don't you love me? Or have I offended you by my way of speaking?'

Persisting, she at length withdrew her hands. Jasper's face expressed something like dismay.

'You have not offended me,' she said. 'But I am not sure that you don't deceive yourself in thinking, for the moment, that I am necessary to your happiness.'

The emotional current which had pa.s.sed from her flesh to his whilst their hands were linked, made him incapable of standing aloof from her.

He saw that her face and neck were warmer hued, and her beauty became more desirable to him than ever yet.

'You are more to me than anything else in the compa.s.s of life!' he exclaimed, again pressing forward. 'I think of nothing but you--you yourself--my beautiful, gentle, thoughtful Marian!'

His arm captured her, and she did not resist. A sob, then a strange little laugh, betrayed the pa.s.sion that was at length unfolded in her.

'You do love me, Marian?'

'I love you.'

And there followed the antiphony of ardour that finds its first utterance--a subdued music, often interrupted, ever returning upon the same rich note.

Marian closed her eyes and abandoned herself to the luxury of the dream.

It was her first complete escape from the world of intellectual routine, her first taste of life. All the pedantry of her daily toil slipped away like a c.u.mbrous garment; she was clad only in her womanhood. Once or twice a shudder of strange self-consciousness went through her, and she felt guilty, immodest; but upon that sensation followed a surge of pa.s.sionate joy, obliterating memory and forethought.

'How shall I see you?' Jasper asked at length. 'Where can we meet?'

It was a difficulty. The season no longer allowed lingerings under the open sky, but Marian could not go to his lodgings, and it seemed impossible for him to visit her at her home.

'Will your father persist in unfriendliness to me?'

She was only just beginning to reflect on all that was involved in this new relation.

'I have no hope that he will change,' she said sadly.

'He will refuse to countenance your marriage?'

'I shall disappoint him and grieve him bitterly. He has asked me to use my money in starting a new review.'

'Which he is to edit?'

'Yes. Do you think there would be any hope of its success?'

Jasper shook his head.

'Your father is not the man for that, Marian. I don't say it disrespectfully; I mean that he doesn't seem to me to have that kind of apt.i.tude. It would be a disastrous speculation.'

'I felt that. Of course I can't think of it now.'

She smiled, raising her face to his.

'Don't trouble,' said Jasper. 'Wait a little, till I have made myself independent of Fadge and a few other men, and your father shall see how heartily I wish to be of use to him. He will miss your help, I'm afraid?'

'Yes. I shall feel it a cruelty when I have to leave him. He has only just told me that his sight is beginning to fail. Oh, why didn't his brother leave him a little money? It was such unkindness! Surely he had a much better right than Amy, or than myself either. But literature has been a curse to father all his life. My uncle hated it, and I suppose that was why he left father nothing.'

'But how am I to see you often? That's the first question. I know what I shall do. I must take new lodgings, for the girls and myself, all in the same house. We must have two sitting-rooms; then you will come to my room without any difficulty. These astonishing proprieties are so easily satisfied after all.'

'You will really do that?'

'Yes. I shall go and look for rooms to-morrow. Then when you come you can always ask for Maud or Dora, you know. They will be very glad of a change to more respectable quarters.'

'I won't stay to see them now, Jasper,' said Marian, her thoughts turning to the girls.

'Very well. You are safe for another hour, but to make certain you shall go at a quarter to five. Your mother won't be against us?'

'Poor mother--no. But she won't dare to justify me before father.'

'I feel as if I should play a mean part in leaving it to you to tell your father. Marian, I will brave it out and go and see him.'

'Oh, it would be better not to.'

'Then I will write to him--such a letter as he can't possibly take in ill part.'

Marian pondered this proposal.

'You shall do that, Jasper, if you are willing. But not yet; presently.'