Bulldog and Butterfly | Page 6

know you're dearer to me than all the whole wide world beside?'
Still Bertha said nothing, but the hand that turned the leaves of the book trembled perceptibly.
'I've come to ask you if you'll be my wife, dear! if you'll let me make you my lifelong care and joy, my darling! You don't guess how much I love you. You don't know how much your answer means to me.'
The girl rose, and, carrying the book with her, walked to the kitchen window and looked out upon the garden, the river, and the fields, without seeing anything. She was evidently agitated, and did not find an answer easily. Lane followed her, and when for a moment she dared to look up at him she encountered a look so tender, anxious, and ardent that she lowered her eyes in quick confusion. He seized her hand, and for a brief instant she let it rest in his.
'Speak to me,' he murmured, caressingly and pleadingly. 'Tell me.'
'I don't understand you, Mr. Protheroe,' the girl said pantingly.
'Not understand me, dear? 'he whispered; 'I am asking you to be my wife.'
'I understand that,' she answered, drawing herself away from him, and speaking with difficulty. 'It is you I don't understand. You--yourself.'
'Tell me how, darling,' he said softly.
'You tell me,' she said, lifting a pale and agitated face, 'that I can't guess how much my answer means to you. But you come here whistling and dancing, as you always come, as if you hadn't a care upon your mind.'
'Don't make that a reproach against me, dear,' said he. 'Why it was just the thought of you made me so happy.'
She looked up at him with an expression of doubt and pain, and as their eyes met he caught one of her hands in both his, and held it.
'Dear Bertha!' he said, with a sudden moisture in his eyes. 'There is nobody so good. There is nobody so lovely.'
She drew away from him again, though some sort of electric influence seemed to come out of him, and draw her strongly to him.
'I must wait,' she said. 'I--I don't know you well enough. I don't understand you. You are too light. You are too careless. I don't know how far I can believe you.'
'Oh!' he cried, 'believe me altogether, dear. I love you with all my heart and soul!'
She moved to the middle of the room, and sheltered herself behind a table which stood there.
'I hardly know whether you have a heart,' she answered then. 'You fancy you feel all you say,' she added quickly. 'You feel it for the minute.'
He stood at the other side of the table with brows suddenly grown gloomy.
'I shall feel it all my life,' he said. 'It's the one thing I've ever been in earnest about. I never thought I should feel as I do. If you like to wait, dear, before answering me, I'll wait just as long as ever you please.' His gloom was gone, and he was all eagerness and vivacity again. 'There's nothing I won't do for your asking. I'll cure every fault I've got. I'll be everything you'd like to have me. Try me, darling. Wait and see. But give me only just a little bit of hope. Don't send me away quite hungry. Tell me you care for me just a little--not as I care for you--I don't expect that. It doesn't stand to reason yet awhile you should.'
There she shot one swift glance at him, averting her gaze at once.
'I won't say I don't like you,' she answered with a candour half rustic, half characteristic of herself 'But I won't answer yes or no just yet.'
'Very well, dear,' he answered tenderly. 'You shall have time to know if I'm in earnest, or if I've taken nothing more than a passing fancy. Shall I ask you again this day six months?'
'I won't promise you an answer then,' she said. 'I will answer you when I am certain.'
'You could care for me, then,' he urged her, 'if you were only quite sure I loved you, and always would love you? Why, Bertha, I'd put my hand in that fire to save you from a finger-ache. I'd jump into the Weale there if I thought I could make you happy by doing it. I'd live my whole life your servant for a smile a year.'
His eyes flashed or moistened with every phrase, his gestures were superabundant and intense, and his voice was genuinely tender and impassioned.
His ardent eyes and voice thrilled the girl, and yet she doubted him. There was a fear in her mind which she could not shake away.
People in Beacon Hargate were not rich in opportunities for the study of the acted drama, but Bertha had seen a play or two in the great town hard by,