Portia Part 38

"And you have no regrets?" regarding her keenly.

"None."

"And does no faintest spark of love for him rest in your heart? Oh, Dulce, take care!"

"Love! I never loved," she says, turning her large eyes full on his. "I have seen people who loved, and so I know. _They_ seem to live, think, breathe for each other alone; the very air seemed full of ecstasy to them; every hour of their day was a divine joy; but I--what have I known of all that?"

She pauses and lays her hand upon her heart.

"And he?" asks Gower, unwisely.

She laughs ironically.

"You have seen him," she says. "Not only that, but you have surely seen us together often enough to be able to answer your question for yourself. A very rude question, by-the-by."

"I beg your pardon," says Gower, heartily ashamed of himself.

"Oh, it doesn't matter," says Dulce, throwing out one hand in a quick, nervous fashion. "Nothing matters much, does it? And now that we are on it, I will answer your question. I believe if I were the only woman in the world, Roger would never have even liked me! He seemed _glad, thankful_, when I gave him a release; _almost_," steadily, "as glad as I was to give it!"

"_Were_ you glad!" asks Gower, eagerly. Going up to her, he takes her hand and holds it with unconscious force in both his own.

"Am I to think that you doubt me?" she says with a frown.

"Shall I ever have occasion to doubt you?" says Gower, with sudden pa.s.sion. "Dulce! now that you are free, will you listen to me? I have only one thought in the world, and that is you, always you! Have I any chance with you? My darling, my own, be kind to me and try to take me to your heart."

The tears well into her eyes. She does not turn from him, but there is no joy in her face at this honest outburst, only trouble and perplexity, and a memory that stings. There is, too, some very keen grat.i.tude.

"_You_ at least do not hate me," she says, with a faint, sobbing cadence in her voice, that desolates, but sweetens it. Her lips quiver. In very truth she is thankful to him in a measure. Her heart warms to him. There is to her a comfort in the thought (a comfort she would have shrunk from acknowledging even to herself) in the certainty that he would be only too proud, too pleased, to be to her what another might have tried to be but would not. Here is this man before her, willing at a word from her to prostrate himself at her feet, while Roger--

"Hate you!" says Gower, with intense feeling. "Whatever joy or sorrow comes of this hour, I shall always know that I really _lived_ in the days when I knew you. My heart, and soul and life, are all yours to do with as you will. I am completely at your mercy."

"Do not talk to me like that," says Dulce, faintly.

"Darling, let me speak now, once for all. I am not perhaps just what you would wish me, but _try_ to like me, will you?"

He is so humble in his wooing that he would have touched the hearts of most women. Dulce grows very pale, and moves a step away from him. A half-frightened expression comes into her eyes, and shrinking still farther away, she releases her hand from his grasp.

"You are angry with me," says Stephen, anxiously, trying bravely not to betray the grief and pain her manner has caused him; "but hear me. I will be your true lover till my life's end; your will shall be my law.

It will be my dearest privilege to be at your feet forever. Let me be your slave, your servant, _anything_, but at least yours. I love you!

Say you will marry me some time."

"Oh, no--_no_--NO!" cries she, softly, but vehemently, covering her eyes with her hands.

"You shall not say that," exclaims he pa.s.sionately; "why should I not win my way with you as well as another, now that you say that you are heart whole. Let me plead my cause?" Here he hesitates, and then plays his last card. "You tell me you have discarded Roger," he says, slowly; "when you did so (forgive me), did he appeal against your decision?"

"No," says Dulce, in a tone so low that he can scarcely hear her.

"Forgive me once more," he says, "if I say that he never appreciated you. And you--where is your pride? Will you not show him now that what he treated with coldness another is only too glad to give all he has for in exchange? Think of this, Dulce. If you wished it I would die for you."

"I almost think I do wish it," says Dulce, with a faint little laugh; but there is a kindness in her voice new to it, and just once she lifts her eyes and looks at him shyly, but sweetly.

Profiting by this gleam of sunshine, Gower takes possession of her hand again and draws her gently towards him.

"You _will_ marry me," he says, "when you think of everything." There is a meaning in his tone she cannot fail to understand.

"Would you," she says tremulously, "marry a woman who does not care for you?"

"When you are once my wife I will teach you to care for me. Such love as mine must create a return."

"You think that now; you feel sure of it. But suppose you failed! No drawing back. It is too dangerous an experiment."

"I defy the danger. I will not believe that it exists; and even if it did--still I should have you."

"Yes, that is just it," she says, wearily. "But how would it be with me?

I should have you, too, but--" Her pause is full of eloquence.

"Try to trust me," he says, in a rather disheartened tone. He is feeling suddenly cast down and dispirited, in spite of his determination to be cool and brave, and to win her against all odds.

To this she says nothing, and silence falls upon them. Her eyes are on the ground; her face is grave and thoughtful. Watching her with deepest anxiety, he tells himself that perhaps after all he may still be victor--that his fears a moment since were groundless. Is she not content to be with him? Her face--how sweet, how calm it is! She is thinking, it may be, of him, of what he has said, of his great and lasting love for her, of--

"I wonder whom Roger will marry now," she says, dreamily, breaking in cruelly upon his fond reverie, and dashing to pieces by this speech all the pretty Spanish castles he has been building in mid-air.

"Can you think of nothing but him?" he says, bitterly, with a quick frown.

"Why should I not think of him?" says Dulce, quite as bitterly. "Is it not natural? An hour ago I looked upon him as my future husband; now he is less to me than nothing! A sudden transition, is it not, from one character to another? _Then_ a possible husband, _now_ a stranger! It is surely something to let one's mind dwell upon."

"Well, let us discuss him, then," exclaims he, savagely. "You speak of his marrying. Perhaps he will bestow his priceless charms on Portia."

"Oh, no!" hastily; "Portia is quite unsuited to him."

"Julia, then?"

"Certainly not _Julia_," disdainfully.

"Miss Vernon, then? She has position and money and so-called beauty."

"Maud Vernon! what an absurd idea; he would be wretched with her."

"Then," with a last remnant of patience, "let us say Lilian Langdale."

"A fast, horsey, unladylike girl like that! How could you imagine Roger would even _look_ at her! Nonsense!"

"It seems to me," says Stephen, with extreme acrimony, "that no one in this county is good enough for Roger; even you, it appears, fell short."

"I did not," indignantly. "It was I, of my own free will, who gave him up."

"Prove that to him by accepting _me_."