第66章

"You know I am not so conceited as that! No," she continued ingenuously, "I feared that if I accepted him it would look, over here, as if the home-supply of husbands were of inferior quality; and then we had such disagreeable discussions at the beginning, I simply could not bear to leave my nice new free country, and ally myself with his aeons of tiresome history. But it came to me in the night, a week ago, that after all I should hate a man who didn't love his Fatherland; and in the illumination of that new idea Ronald's character assumed a different outline in my mind. How could he love America when he had never seen it? How could I convince him that American women are the most charming in the world in any better way than by letting him live under the same roof with a good example? How could I expect him to let me love my country best unless I permitted him to love his best?"

"You needn't offer so many apologies for your infatuation, my dear,"

I answered dryly.

"I am not apologising for it!" she exclaimed impulsively. "Oh, if you could only keep it to yourself, I should like to tell you how I trust and admire and reverence Ronald Macdonald, but of course you will repeat everything to Willie Beresford within the hour! You think he has gone on and on loving me against his better judgment.

You believe he has fought against it because of my unfitness, but that I, poor, weak, trivial thing, am not capable of deep feeling and that I shall never appreciate the sacrifices he makes in choosing me! Very well, then, I tell you plainly that if I had to live in a damp manse the rest of my life, drink tea and eat scones for breakfast, and--and buy my hats of the Inchcaldy milliner, I should still glory in the possibility of being Ronald Macdonald's wife--a possibility hourly growing more uncertain, I am sorry to say!"

"And the extreme aversion with which you began," I asked--"what has become of that, and when did it begin to turn in the opposite direction?"

"Aversion!" she cried, with convincing and unblushing candour.

"That aversion was a cover, clapped on to keep my self-respect warm.

I abused him a good deal, it is true, because it was so delightful to hear you and Salemina take his part. Sometimes I trembled for fear you would agree with me, but you never did. The more I criticised him, the louder you sang his praises--it was lovely! The fact is--we might as well throw light upon the whole matter, and then never allude to it again; and if you tell Willie Beresford, you shall never visit my manse, nor see me preside at my mothers' meetings, nor hear me address the infant class in the Sunday-school--the fact is, I liked him from the beginning at Lady Baird's dinner. I liked the bow he made when he offered me his arm (I wish it had been his hand); I liked the top of his head when it was bowed; I liked his arm when I took it; I liked the height of his shoulder when I stood beside it;

I liked the way he put me in my chair (that showed chivalry), and unfolded his napkin (that was neat and business-like), and pushed aside all his wine-glasses but one (that was temperate); I liked the side view of his nose, the shape of his collar, the cleanness of his shave, the manliness of his tone--oh, I liked him altogether, you must know how it is, Penelope--the goodness and strength and simplicity that radiated from him. And when he said, within the first half-hour, that international alliances presented even more difficulties to the imagination than others, I felt, to my confusion, a distinct sense of disappointment. Even while I was quarrelling with him, I said to myself, `Poor darling, you cannot have him even if you should want him, so don't look at him much!'--But I did look at him; and what is worse, he looked at me; and what is worse yet, he curled himself so tightly round my heart that if he takes himself away, I shall be cold the rest of my life!"

"Then you are really sure of your love this time, and you have never advised him to wed somebody more worthy than yourself?" I asked.

"Not I!" she replied. "I wouldn't put such an idea into his head for worlds! He might adopt it!"