Page:HG Wells--secret places of the heart.djvu/204

192 “V.V., I’m going to make a man of you....”

His mind grew calmer. Whatever she wanted in Paris should be hers. He’d just let her rip. They’d be like sweethearts together, he and his girl.

Old Grammont dozed off into dreamland.

The imaginations of Mr. Gunter Lake, two days behind Mr. Grammont upon the Atlantic, were of a gentler, more romantic character. In them V.V. was no longer a daughter in the fierce focus of a father’s jealousy, but the goddess enshrined in a good man’s heart. Indeed the figure that the limelight of the reverie fell upon was not V.V. at all but Mr. Gunter Lake himself, in his favourite rôle of the perfect lover.

An interminable speech unfolded itself. “I ask for nothing in return. I’ve never worried you about that Caston business and I never will. Married to me you shall be as free as if you were unmarried. Don’t I know, my dear girl, that you don’t love me yet. Let that be as you wish. I want nothing you are not willing to give me, nothing at all. All I ask is the privilege of making life happy—and it shall be happy—for you.... All I ask.... All I ask.... Protect, guard, cherish....”