"Of course I will excuse you!" and she smiled--"I know you don't like company."
"I very much DISLIKE it!" he said, emphatically--"But then I'm quite an unsociable person. You see I've lived alone here for ten years--- "
"And you want to go on living alone for another ten years--I see!" said Maryllia--"Well! So you shall! I promise I won't interfere!"
He looked at her half appealingly.
"I don't think you understand,"--he said,--then paused.
"Oh yes, I understand perfectly!" And she smiled radiantly. "You like to be left quite to yourself, with your books and flowers, and the bits of glass for the rose-window in the church. By the bye, I must help you with that rose-window! I will get you some genuine old pieces--and if I find any very rare specimens of medieval blue or crimson you'll be so pleased that you'll forget all about that cigarette--you know you will!"
"Miss Vancourt,"--he began earnestly--"if you will only believe that it is because I think so highly of you--because you have seemed to me so much above the mere society woman that I---I---"
"I know!" she said, very softly--"I quite see your point of view!"
"You are not of the modern world,"--he went on, slowly--"Not in your heart--not in your real tastes and sentiments;--not yet, though you may possibly be forced to become one with it after your marriage---"
"And when will that be?" she interrupted him smiling.
His clear, calm blue eyes rested upon her gravely and searchingly.
"Soon surely,--if report be true!"
"Really? Well, you ought to know whether the date has been fixed yet,"--she said, very demurely--"Because, of course YOU'LL have to marry me!"
Something swayed and rocked in John's brain, making the ground he stood upon swerve and seem unsteady. A wave of colour flushed his bronzed face up to the very roots of his grey-brown hair. Maryllia watched him with prettily critical interest, much as a kitten watches the rolling out of a ball of worsted on which it has just placed its little furry paw. Hurriedly he sought in his mind for something to say.
"I---I---don't quite understand,"--he murmured.
"Don't you?" and she smiled upon him blandly--"Surely you wouldn't expect me to be married in any church but yours, or by any clergyman but you?"