Satan, as an angel of light, entered into him.  He knew he could not say this to her as he ought to say it; as he would say it to a girl of his own class whom father and mother would welcome.  There was no girl of his own class he had ever cared to say it to.  This was the first woman he had found, with whom the home thought joined itself.  And this could not rightly be.  If he took her, he would no longer have the things to give her.  They would be cast out together.  And all he could do was to make pictures, of which he had never sold one, or thought to sell one, in all his life.  He would be just as poor as she was; and he felt that he did not know how to be poor.  Besides, he wanted to be rich for her.  He wanted to give her,—­now, right off,—­everything.

Why shouldn’t he give?  Why shouldn’t she take?  He had plenty of money; he was his father’s only son.  He meant right; so he said to himself; and what had the world to do with it?

“I wish I could take care of you, Bel!  Would you let me?  Would you go with me?”

The words seemed to have said themselves.  The devil, whom he had let have his heart for a minute, had got his lips and spoken through them before he knew.

“Where?” asked Bel.  “Home?”

“Yes,—­home,” said the young man, hesitating.

“Where your mother lives?”

Bel Bree’s simplicity went nigh to being a stronger battery of defense than any bristling of alarmed knowledge.

“No,” said Morris Hewland.  “Not there.  It would not do for you, or her either.  But I could give you a little home.  I could take care of you all your life; all my life.  And I would.  I will never make a home for anybody else.  I will be true to you, if you will trust me,—­always.  So help me God!”

He meant it; there was no dark, deliberate sin in his heart, any more than in hers; he was tempted on the tenderest, truest side of his nature, as he was tempting her.  He did not see why he should not choose the woman he would live with all his life, though he knew he could not choose her in the face of all the world, though he could not be married to her in the Church of the Holy Commandments, with bridesmaids and ushers, and music and flowers, and point lace and white satin, and fifty private carriages waiting at the door, and half a ton of gold and silver plate and verd antique piled up for them in his father’s house.

His father was a hard, proud, unflinching man, who loved and indulged his son, after his fashion and possibility; but who would never love or indulge him again if he offended in such a thing as this.  His mother was a woman who simply could not understand that a girl like Bel Bree was a creature made by God at all, as her daughters were, and her son’s wife should be.

“Do you care enough for me?”

Bel stood utterly still.  She had never been asked any such questions before, but she felt in some way, that this was not all; ought not to be all; that there was more he was to say, before she could answer him.