Page:Elizabeth's Pretenders.djvu/79

66 He was as unsuspicious of sordid motives, after seventy years' contact with the world, as Elizabeth herself. But his world had been a narrow one; a sleepy hollow, a round of dozy virtues, and small fretful sins. Of the great iniquity so near at hand, his knowledge of life had given him no premonition.

An hour later, that same evening, under the jasmine bower at the end of the garden, but faintly lifted from darkness by the stream of lamplight out of the open drawing-room window, Colonel Wybrowe definitely asked Elizabeth to be his wife.

"Are you sure you are not mistaken?" she said, in a low, hesitating voice. "I have heard that men so often are. If you had met me in London—if you could compare me with many other girls—girls in society, who know all the things of which I am so ignorant—perhaps you would change your mind. You might see me then with different eyes."

"I shall never see you otherwise than as I do now, Elizabeth"—he, too, dropped his voice to almost a whisper. "You are awfully sweet and clever, and there is no girl in London, I am sure, to compare with you; no other girl I have ever seen that I would marry. You're not narrow-minded, and all that. You understand me, and will make allowances; you won't expect to find me a model of all the virtues—will you?"

"No; I do not expect to find you that."

His strong arm encircled her; he stooped and kissed her brow. She did not free herself; she did not resist. She looked up into the handsome, dimly lit face that bent over her. She continued, after a pause—