"Do you know," he said at length, looking into her face with the quietest
smile, that if this lawsuit had gone against me it would have been the first
great defeat of my life? Sorely as I have struggled, I have yet to encounter
that common myth of weak men, an insurmountable barrier. The imperfection of
our lives-- what is it but the imperfection of our planning and doing?
Shattered ideals--what hand shatters them but one's own? I declare to you at
this moment, standing here in the clear light of my own past, that I firmly
believe I shall be what I will, that I shall have what I want, and that I
shall now go on rearing the structure of my life, to the last detail, just
as I have long planned it."She did not answer, but stood looking at him with
a new pity in her eyes. After all, was he so young, so untaught by the
world? Had a little prosperity already puffed him up?
"There will be this difference, of course," he added. "Hitherto I have had
to build slowly; henceforth there will be no delay, now that I am free to
lay hold upon the material. But, my dear friend, I cannot bear to think of
my life as a structure to be successfully reared without settling at once
how it is to be lighted from within. And, therefore, I have come to speak to
you about--the lamp."
As he said this a solemn beauty flashed out upon his face. As though the
outer curtain of his nature had been drawn up, she now gazed into the depths
and confidences.
Her head dropped quickly on her bosom; and she drew slightly back, as though
to escape pain or danger."You must know how long I have loved Amy," he
continued in a tone of calmness. "I have not spoken sooner, because the
circumstances of my life made it necessary for me to wait; and now I wish to
ask her to become my wife, and I am here to beg your consent first."
For some time she did not answer. The slip of an elm grew beside the picket
fence, and she stood passing her fingers over the topmost leaves, with her
head lowered so that he could not see her face. At length she said in a
voice he could hardly hear: "I have feared for a long time that this would come; but I have never been
able to get ready for it, and I am not ready now."