’There, that’s just it!  You girls expect a man to mean business at the first look.  No man when he first becomes interested in a woman has any definite scheme of engagement to marry her in his mind, unless he is meaning a vulgar mercenary marriage.  However, I did at last mean an honourable engagement, as you call it, come to that.’

’But you never said so, and an indefinite courtship soon injures a woman’s position and credit, sooner than you think.’

’Baptista, I solemnly declare that in six months I should have asked you to marry me.’

She walked along in silence, looking on the ground, and appearing very uncomfortable.  Presently he said, ’Would you have waited for me if you had known?’ To this she whispered in a sorrowful whisper, ‘Yes!’

They went still farther in silence—­passing along one of the beautiful walks on the outskirts of the town, yet not observant of scene or situation.  Her shoulder and his were close together, and he clasped his fingers round the small of her arm—­quite lightly, and without any attempt at impetus; yet the act seemed to say, ’Now I hold you, and my will must be yours.’

Recurring to a previous question of hers he said, ’I have merely run down here for a day or two from school near Trufal, before going off to the north for the rest of my holiday.  I have seen my relations at Redrutin quite lately, so I am not going there this time.  How little I thought of meeting you!  How very different the circumstances would have been if, instead of parting again as we must in half-an-hour or so, possibly for ever, you had been now just going off with me, as my wife, on our honeymoon trip.  Ha—­ha—­well—­so humorous is life!’

She stopped suddenly.  ’I must go back now—­this is altogether too painful, Charley!  It is not at all a kind mood you are in today.’

‘I don’t want to pain you—­you know I do not,’ he said more gently.  ’Only it just exasperates me—­this you are going to do.  I wish you would not.’

‘What?’

‘Marry him.  There, now I have showed you my true sentiments.’

‘I must do it now,’ said she.

‘Why?’ he asked, dropping the off-hand masterful tone he had hitherto spoken in, and becoming earnest; still holding her arm, however, as if she were his chattel to be taken up or put down at will.  ’It is never too late to break off a marriage that’s distasteful to you.  Now I’ll say one thing; and it is truth:  I wish you would marry me instead of him, even now, at the last moment, though you have served me so badly.’

‘O, it is not possible to think of that!’ she answered hastily, shaking her head.  ’When I get home all will be prepared—­it is ready even now—­the things for the party, the furniture, Mr. Heddegan’s new suit, and everything.  I should require the courage of a tropical lion to go home there and say I wouldn’t carry out my promise!’

’Then go, in Heaven’s name!  But there would be no necessity for you to go home and face them in that way.  If we were to marry, it would have to be at once, instantly; or not at all.  I should think your affection not worth the having unless you agreed to come back with me to Trufal this evening, where we could be married by licence on Monday morning.  And then no Mr. David Heddegan or anybody else could get you away from me.’