"So in Texas----"
"I should have killed him," he said with confidence.
"Or else----?" she shivered.
"Or else--exactly," he said cheerfully.
"It's very dreadful," she said with a troubled face. "Thank goodness,
that that sort of thing cannot happen here."
"Thank goodness," he repeated without heartiness.
"Do you think it can?" She shot a suspicious glance at him.
"Good heavens, no!" he denied, his vigour a little overdone.
"You do!" she cried, "you believe he will try, please, please tell me."
The eyes of the man were very tender, there was a curious sadness in
them when he looked at her; she dropped hers before them.
"You must not think of such things," he said gently, so unlike his usual
self that she, for some unfathomable reason, was near to tears, "why, I
scarcely deserve your thought. I who have vexed you so, and hurt you so,
though God knows I only acted as I did in an impetuosity that was born
of a great and an abiding love."
Her heart went racing, like the screw of a liner, and she felt choking.
There were other sensations which she had no time to analyse. Her eyes
sought the ground and her hands plucked idly at the flowers within her
reach.
"Please remember that, Alicia." With an odd thrill she recognized the
masterful touch in this calm appropriation of her name. "What may have
seemed impertinence, was really sincerity. The world would say that I
have not known you long enough, that the hideous formalities and
conventional preliminaries were essential, and that to ask a girl to
marry you for no other reason than because you had seen her and loved
her, without balancing this virtue against that failing, was an
outrageous and unprecedented thing."
She raised her eyes up shyly but did not speak.
The old look was coming back into his face. The old mocking was in his
voice when he went on.
"Alicia, I was prepared to take you without a character--and do not
forget that I am a suburban householder--without even so much as a line
from your last place--did you ever have a last place?" he added
suspiciously. She shook her head.
"You--you," she faltered, "are the only master I have ever had!"
Then she fled into the house, and Hank, looking through the back
drawing-room window, saw the duke turning somersaults on the lawn--and
drew his own conclusions.