only for you.”
“You’ve known me too short a time to have a right to say that, and I can’t believe you’re serious.”
These words of Isabel’s were not perfectly sincere, for she had no doubt whatever that he himself was. They were simply a tribute to the fact, of which she was perfectly aware, that those he had just uttered would have excited surprise on the part of a vulgar world. And, moreover, if anything beside the sense she had already acquired that Lord Warburton was not a loose thinker had been needed to convince her, the tone in which he replied would quite have served the purpose.
“One’s right in such a matter is not measured by the time, Miss Archer; it’s measured by the feeling itself. If I were to wait three months it would make no difference; I shall not be more sure of what I mean than I am to-day. Of course I’ve seen you very little, but my impression dates from the very first hour we met. I lost no time, I fell in love with you then. It was at first sight, as the novels say; I know now that’s not a fancy-phrase, and I shall think better of novels for evermore. Those two days I spent here settled it; I don’t know whether you suspected I was doing so, but I paid—mentally speaking I mean—the greatest possible attention to you. Nothing you said, nothing you did, was lost upon me. When you came to Lockleigh the other day—or rather when you went away—I was perfectly sure. Nevertheless I made up my mind to think it over and to question myself narrowly. I’ve done so; all these days I’ve done nothing else. I don’t make mistakes about such things; I’m a very judicious animal. I don’t go off easily, but when I’m touched, it’s for life. It’s for life, Miss Archer, it’s for life,” Lord Warburton repeated in the kindest, tenderest, pleasantest voice Isabel had ever heard, and looking at her with eyes charged with the light of a passion that had sifted itself clear of the baser parts of emotion—the heat, the violence, the unreason—and that burned as steadily as a lamp in a windless place.
By tacit consent, as he talked, they had walked more and more slowly, and at last they stopped and he took her hand. “Ah, Lord Warburton, how little you know me!” Isabel said very gently. Gently too she drew her hand away.
“Don’t taunt me with that; that I don’t know you better makes me unhappy enough already; it’s all my loss. But that’s what I want, and it seems to me I’m taking the best way. If you’ll be my wife, then I shall know you, and when I tell you all the good I think of you you’ll not be able to say it’s from ignorance.”
“If you know me little I know you even less,” said Isabel.
“You mean that, unlike yourself, I may not improve on acquaintance? Ah, of course that’s very possible. But think, to speak to you as I do, how determined I must be to try and give satisfaction! You do like me rather, don’t you?”
“I like you very much, Lord Warburton,” she answered; and at this moment she liked him immensely.
“I thank you for saying that; it shows you don’t regard me as a stranger. I really believe I’ve filled all the other relations of life very creditably, and I don’t see why I shouldn’t fill this one—in which I offer myself to you—seeing that I care so much more about it. Ask the people who know me well; I’ve friends who’ll speak for me.”
“I don’t need the recommendation of your friends,” said Isabel.
“Ah now, that’s delightful of you. You believe in me yourself.”
“Completely,” Isabel declared. She quite glowed there, inwardly, with the pleasure of feeling she did.
The light in her companion’s eyes turned into a smile, and he gave a long exhalation of joy. “If you’re mistaken, Miss Archer, let me lose all I possess!”
She wondered whether he meant this for a reminder that he was rich, and, on the instant, felt sure that he didn’t. He was thinking that, as he would have said himself; and indeed he might safely leave it to the memory of any interlocutor, especially of one to whom he was offering his hand. Isabel had prayed that she might not be agitated, and her mind was tranquil enough, even while she listened and asked herself what it was best she should say, to indulge in this incidental criticism. What she should say, had she asked herself? Her foremost wish was to say something if possible not less kind than what he had said to her. His words had carried perfect conviction with them; she felt she did, all so mysteriously, matter to him. “I thank you more than I can say for your offer,” she returned at last. “It does me great honour.”
“Ah, don’t say that!” he broke out. “I was afraid you’d say something like that. I don’t see what you’ve to do with that sort of thing. I don’t see why you should thank me—it’s I who ought to thank you for listening to me: a man you know so little coming down on you with such a thumper! Of course it’s a great question; I must tell you that I’d rather ask it than have it to answer myself. But the way you’ve listened—or at least your having listened at all—gives me some hope.”
“Don’t hope too much,” Isabel said.
“Oh Miss Archer!” her companion murmured, smiling again, in his seriousness, as if such a warning might perhaps be taken but as the play of high spirits, the exuberance of elation.
“Should you be greatly surprised if I were to beg you not to hope at all?” Isabel asked.
“Surprised? I don’t know what you mean by surprise. It wouldn’t be that; it would be a feeling very much worse.”
Isabel walked on again; she was silent for some minutes. “I’m very sure that, highly as I already think of you, my opinion of you, if I should know you well, would only rise. But I’m by no means sure that you wouldn’t be disappointed. And I say that not in the least out of conventional modesty; it’s perfectly sincere.”
“I’m willing to risk it, Miss Archer,” her companion replied.
“It’s a great question, as you say. It’s a very difficult question.”
“I don’t expect you of course to answer it outright. Think it over as long as may be necessary. If I can gain by waiting I’ll gladly wait a long time. Only remember that in the end my dearest happiness depends on your answer.”
“I should be very sorry to keep you in suspense,” said Isabel.
“Oh, don’t mind. I’d much rather have a good answer six months hence than a bad one to-day.”
“But it’s very probable that even six months hence I shouldn’t be able to give you one that you’d think good.”
“Why not, since you really like me?”
“Ah, you must never doubt that,” said Isabel.
“Well then, I don’t see what more you ask!”
“It’s not what I ask; it’s what I can give. I don’t think I should suit you; I really don’t think I should.”
“You needn’t worry about that. That’s my affair. You needn’t be a better royalist than the king.”
“It’s not only that,” said Isabel; “but I’m not sure I wish to marry any one.”
“Very likely you don’t. I’ve no doubt a great many women begin that way,” said his lordship, who, be it averred, did not in the least believe in the axiom he thus beguiled his anxiety by uttering. “But they’re frequently persuaded.”
“Ah, that’s because they want to be!” And Isabel lightly laughed. Her suitor’s countenance fell, and he looked at her for a while in silence. “I’m afraid it’s my being an Englishman that makes you hesitate,” he said presently. “I know your uncle thinks you ought to marry in your own country.”
Isabel listened to this assertion with some interest; it had never occurred to her that Mr. Touchett was likely to discuss her matrimonial prospects with Lord Warburton. “Has he told you that?”
“I remember his making the remark. He spoke