"That's better," encouraged Denis. "I was beginning to worry about you." He leant impulsively across the table and took her thin, small fingers in his.
"You know, Mary dear, I want you so much to be happy. When I first saw you I loved you for your loveliness but it was a sad loveliness. You looked to me as if you were afraid to smile, as if some one had crushed all the laughter out of you. Ever since our wonderful time together, dear, I've been thinking of you. I love you and I hope that you love me, for I feel we are just made for each other. I couldn't live without you now and I want to be with you, to watch you unfold out of your sadness and see you laugh at any silly stupid joke I make to you. Let me pay my court to you openly."
She was silent, moved immeasurably by his words, then at last she spoke:
"How I wish we could be together," she said sadly. "I I've missed you so much, Denis. But you don't know my father. He is terrible. There is something about him you don't understand. I'm afraid of him, and he he has forbidden me to speak to you."
Denis' eyes narrowed.
"Am I not good enough for him?"
Mary gripped his fingers tightly, involuntarily, as though he had wounded her.
"Oh! Don't say that, dear Denis. You're wonderful and I love you, I'd die for you; but my father is the most domineering man you could ever imagine; oh! and the proudest man too."
"Why is he like that? He has nothing against me? I've nothing to be ashamed of, Mary. Why do you say he is proud?"
Mary did not reply for a moment. Then she said slowly, "I don't know! When I was little I never thought about it; my father was like a god to me, so big, so strong; every word that he uttered was like a command. As I grew older, I seemed to feel there was some mystery, something which makes him different from ordinary people, which makes him try to mould us into his own fashion, and now I almost fear that he thinks " She paused and looked up at Denis nervously/
"What?" he urged.
"I'm not sure, oh! I can hardly say it." She blushed uncomfortably as she haltingly continued, "He seems to think we are related in some way to the Winton family."
"To the Wintons," he exclaimed incredulously. "To the Earl himself! How on earth does he make that out?"
She shook her head sadly, miserably. "I don't know. He never lets himself speak of it, but I know it's in the back of his mind all the time. The Winton family name is Brodie, you see Oh! but it's all so ridiculous."
"Ridiculous!" he echoed. "It does seem ridiculous! What does he expect to get out of it?"
"Nothing," she exclaimed bitterly. "Only the satisfaction to his pride. He makes life miserable for us at times. He compels us, makes us live differently from other people. We're apart in that house of ours that he built himself, and like him it oppresses us all." Carried away by the expression of her fears, she cried out finally, "Oh ! Denis, I know it's not right for me to talk like this about my own father, but I'm afraid of him. He would never never allow our engagement."
Denis set his teeth. "I'll go and see him myself. I'll convince him in spite of himself and I'll make him let me see you. I'm not afraid of him. I'm not afraid of any man living."
She jumped up in a panic. "No! No, Denis! Don't do that. He would punish us both dreadfully." The vision of her father, with his fearful, brute strength, mauling the beauty of this young gladiator, terrified her. "Promise me you won't," she cried.
"But we must see each other, Mary. I can't give you up."
"We could meet sometimes," said Mary.
"That leads nowhere, dear; we must have some definite understanding. You know I want to marry you." He looked at her closely; he knew her ignorance to be such that he was afraid to say any more. Instead, he took up her hand, kissed the palm softly, and laid his cheek against it.
"Will you meet me soon?" he asked inconsequently. "I would like to be in the moonlight with you again to see it shining in your eyes, to see the moonbeams dancing in your hair." He lifted his head and looked lovingly at her hand, which he still held in his. "Your hands are like snowdrops, Mary, so soft and white and drooping. They are cool like snow itself against my hot face. I love them, and I love you."
A passionate longing seized him to have her always with him. If necessary he would fight; he would be stronger than the circumstances that separated them, stronger than fate itself; in a different voice he said firmly:
"Surely you will marry me, even if we've got to wait, won't you, Mary?"
While he sat silent against the garish background of the empty shop, his hand lightly touching hers, awaiting her answer, she saw in his eyes the leaping of his kindred soul towards her, in his question only the request that she be happy with him always, and, forgetting instantly the difficulty, danger and total impossibility of the achievement, knowing nothing of marriage but only loving him, losing her fear in his strength and sinking herself utterly in him, her eyes looked deeply into his, as she answered:
"Yes."
He did not move, did not cast himself upon his knee in a passion of protesting gratitude, but in his stillness a current of unutterable love and fervour flowed from his body into hers through the medium of their touching hands and into his eyes there welled up such a look of tenderness and devotion that, meeting hers, it fused about them like an aura of radiance.
"You'll not regret it, dear," he whispered, as he leaned across the table and softly kissed her lips. "I'll do my utmost to make you happy, Mary! I've been selfish, but now you will always come first. I'll work hard for you. I'm making my way fast and I'm going to make it faster. I've got something in the bank now and in a short time, if you? I’ll wait, Mary, we'll just walk off and get married."
The dazzling simplicity of the solution blinded her, as, thinking how easy it would be fpr them to run away suddenly, secretly, without her father knowing, to loose themselves utterly from him, she dasped her hands together and whispered:
"Oh! Denis, could we? I never thought of that!"
"We can and we will, dear Mary. Ill work hard so that we can manage soon. Remember my motto! We'll make that our family crest Never mind the Wintons! Now, not another word or another worry for that little head of yours. Leave everything to me and remember only that I'm thinking of you and striving for you all the time. We may have to be careful how we meet, but surely I can see you occasionally even if it's only to admire the elegant little figure of you from a distance."
"I'll have to see you sometimes; it would be too hard to do without that," she murmured, and added ingenuously, "Every Tuesday I go to the Library to change Mamma's book, and sometimes my own."
"Didn't I find that out for myself, you spalpeen!" smiled Denis. "Sure enough I'll know all about your mother's taste in literature before I'm finished. And don't I know the Library! I'll be there, you may be sure. But can you not give me a photo of your own dear self to keep me going, in between times?"
She hung her head a little, conscious of her own deficiencies and the oddity of her up-bringing, as she replied, "I haven't got one. Father didn't approve of it."
"What! Your parents are behind the times, my girl. We'll have to waken them up. To think that you've never been taken is a shame; but never mind, I'll have your sweet face before the camera the moment we're married. How do you like this?" he enquired, as he produced a misty brown photograph of a jaunty young man stand-
ing with cheerful fortitude, mingled with an inappropriate air of hilarity, amongst what appeared to be an accumulation of miniature tombstones.
"Denis Foyle at the Giants' Causeway last year," he explained. "That old woman that sells shells there, you know, the big curly ones that sing in your ear, told my fortune that day. She said I was going to be the lucky, lucky gossoon, and indeed she must have known I was going to meet you."
"Can I have this, Denis?" she asked shyly. "I think it's lovely."
"It's for you and no other, provided you wear it next your heart."
"I must wear it where nobody sees it," she answered innocently.
"That'll suit me," he replied, and smiled teasingly at the sudden rush of colour and understanding which flooded her modest brow. But immediately he amended honourably:
"Don't mind me, Mary. As the Irishman said, Tm always puttin' me foot in it with me clumsy tongue."
They both laughed, but as she dissolved in gaiety, feeling that she could have listened to his banter for ever, she saw the purpose behind it and loved him for the attempt to hearten her against their separation. His courage made her valiant, his frank but audacious attitude towards life stimulated her as a clear cold wind might arouse a prisoner after a long incarceration in stagnant air. All this rushed upon her as she said involuntarily, simply:
"You make me glad and free, Denis. I can breathe when I'm with you. I did not know the meaning of love until I met you. I had never thought of it did nor understand but now I know that, always, for me, love is to be with you, to breathe with the same breath as you."
She broke off abruptly, covered with confusion, at her boldness in speaking to him like this. A faint recollection of her previous existence, of her life apart from him, dawned upon her, and, as her eye fell upon the heap of parcels beside her, she remembered Mamma who would be wondering what had become of her; she thought of her already appalling lateness, of the necessity for prudence and caution, and starting up abruptly, she said, with a short sigh:
"I'll really need to go now, Denis."
Her words burdened him suddenly with the imminence of her departure, but he did not plead with her to stay, and he stood up, like a man, at once, saying:
"I don't want you to go, dear, and I know you don't want to go either, but we've got the future straightened out better now. We've only got to love each other and wait."
They were still alone. Bertorelli, in vanishing irrevocably, had, monster though he might be, betrayed none the less a human understanding and a tactful appreciation of their situation which might weigh in the balance however lightly against the atrocities that had been imputed to him. They kissed quickly, when her lips swept his like the brush of a butterfly's wing. At the door they shared one last look, a silent communion of all their secret understanding, confidence and love, which passed between them like a sacred talisman before she turned and left him.