“This is fatal news to me,” said Arthur, softly sitting down opposite to her. “I thought I might have stayed here at Arden, and for once kept out of the racket of town.”
“I thought you liked town,” said Clare, “and I thought my brother hated it. I must have been mistaken in both.”
“Do not be so hard upon me. I have liked town more than I ought. When there are a good many things in a man’s life that he is very glad to forget, and not many that are much pleasure to think of, town is a resource to him; but when there comes a balmy time like this, when it almost looks as if the gates of heaven might open once in a way----”
“You are very poetical,” said Clare, forcing herself to smile, though her heart began to flutter and beat with the sense of something more to come.
“Am I?” he said, and then began to mutter between his teeth, the first line faintly, the second more audible--
“If Maud were all that she seemed, And her smile were all that I deemed, Then this world were not so bitter But a smile might make it sweet.”
Clare heard, but she did not smile. She kept her eyes on her work, and her lips shut close. And after he had discharged this little arrow, he sat and looked at her and wondered. She gave him no encouragement--not the least. She would not even let it be apparent that she understood, or that there was any meaning whatever perceptible to her in what he said. The only thing that could give him any hope was a subdued consciousness about her, a thrill of suppressed excitement--something which made her fix her eyes upon her work and restrain her breath. Arthur saw this, and it made his heart beat. She was expectant--waiting for other words which she foresaw were coming--words which he would have given a great deal to be allowed to speak. For one moment he hesitated, and had almost gone on. But again a cold dread came over him. Was it according to nature that a proud girl like Clare should thus wait for her lover’s declaration if she meant to answer it favourably? Was it not a stately, reluctant kindness on her part, to get over a crisis which she felt to be coming, and spare him as much pain as possible? He shrank back into himself with a sense of suffering greater than he could have considered possible when this idea took possession of him. Would she have given him this gracious opportunity, waited for him in such stillness and consciousness, had any word but “No” been on her lips? He did not think that Clare felt herself like a sovereign princess, one whom men dare not woo unless when signs and tokens to justify the daring are supplied. She sat motionless, expecting, meaning to give him courage. And he took from this indication of royal readiness to listen only an intimation of despair.