She raised her eyes to his, all her ripe beauty one flush. He put his arms round her, whispering:
"Marcia! will you come to me--will you be my wife?"
She leaned against him in a trance of happiness, hiding her face, yet not so that his lips could not find hers. So this was love?--the supreme of life?
They stood so in silence a little. Then, still holding her, he drew her within the low feathering branches of a giant tree, where was a fallen log. He placed her on it, and himself beside her.
"How wonderful that you should love me, that you should let me love you!" he said, with passionate emotion. "Oh, Marcia, am I worthy--shall I make you happy?"
"That is for me to ask!" Her mouth was trembling now, and the tears were in her eyes. "I'm not nearly as good as you, Edward. I shall often make you angry with me."
"Angry!" He laughed in scorn. "Could any one, ever, be angry with you, Marcia! Darling, I want you to help me so! We'll help each other--to live as we ought to live. Isn't God good? Isn't life wonderful?"
She pressed his hand for answer. But the intensity of his joy, as she read it in his eyes, had in it--for her--and for the moment--just a shade of painfulness. It seemed to claim something from her that she could not quite give--or that she might not be able to give. Some secret force in her cried out in protest. But the slight shrinking passed almost immediately. She threw off her hat, and lifted her beautiful brow to him in a smiling silence. He drew her to him again, and as she felt the pressure of his arm about her, heart and soul yielded utterly. She was just the young girl, loving and beloved.
"Do your father and mother really approve?" she asked at last as she disengaged herself, and her hands went up to her hot cheeks, and then to her hair, to smooth it back into something like order.
"Let us go and see." He raised her joyously to her feet.
"I'm rather afraid of them, Edward. You must tell them not to expect too much. And I shall always--want to be myself."
"Darling! what else could they, could any one want for you--or for me!" The tone showed him a little startled, perhaps stung, by her words. And he added, with a sudden flush:
"Of course I know what Coryston will say to you. He seems to think us all hypocrites and tyrants. Well--you will judge. I won't defend my father and mother. You will soon know them. You will see what their lives are."