Page:A Literary Courtship (1893).pdf/183

 cause him to shrink from a rebuff, nor Benny Mortimer's excessive modesty to make him self-distrustful. He would survive a rejection, of course. It would take more than that to demolish John, or at least I hoped so, but it would be rough, and I couldn't bear to think of it.

Then I imagined her saying yes, and that was about as bad as the other.

"O Lord!" I caught myself saying. "Why need she have been such a provoking paragon? What did she want to go and do all those charming things for? Was it not enough that she should write such uncommonly good letters, and drag us out by them to this fatal place, without being so unnecessarily good-looking, and riding so absurdly well, and talking just after John's own heart, and being, altogether, I verily believe, the one woman on this planet whom John would lose his head over?"

My mind reverted to the grace and sweetness with which she picked up that