第61章

"Answer me truly, on your honor.You are not seeking to marry me on account of my rank?"The shot almost knocked him through the wall, he was so little prepared for it.There was something so finely grotesque about the question and its parent suspicion, that he stopped to wonder and admire, and thus was he saved from laughing.Then, without wasting precious time, he set about the task of convincing her that he had been lured by herself alone, and had fallen in love with her only, not her title and position; that he loved her with all his heart, and could not love her more if she were a duchess, or less if she were without home, name or family.She watched his face wistfully, eagerly, hopefully, translating his words by its expression; and when he had finished there was gladness in her heart--a tumultuous gladness, indeed, though outwardly she was calm, tranquil, even judicially austere.She prepared a surprise for him, now, calculated to put a heavy strain upon those disinterested protestations of his; and thus she delivered it, burning it away word by word as the fuse burns down to a bombshell, and watching to see how far the explosion would lift him:

"Listen--and do not doubt me, for I shall speak the exact truth.Howard Tracy, I am no more an earl's child than you are!"To her joy--and secret surprise, also--it never phased him.He was ready, this time, and saw his chance.He cried out with enthusiasm, "Thank heaven for that!" and gathered her to his arms.

To express her happiness was almost beyond her gift of speech.

"You make me the proudest girl in all the earth," she said, with her head pillowed on his shoulder."I thought it only natural that you should be dazzled by the title--maybe even unconsciously, you being English--and that you might be deceiving yourself in thinking you loved only me, and find you didn't love me when the deception was swept away; so it makes me proud that the revelation stands for nothing and that you do love just me, only me--oh, prouder than any words can tell!""It is only you, sweetheart, I never gave one envying glance toward your father's earldom.That is utterly true, dear Gwendolen.""There-you mustn't call me that.I hate that false name.I told you it wasn't mine.My name is Sally Sellers--or Sarah, if you like.From this time I banish dreams, visions, imaginings, and will no more of them.

I am going to be myself--my genuine self, my honest self, my natural self, clear and clean of sham and folly and fraud, and worthy of you.

There is no grain of social inequality between us; I, like you, am poor;I, like you, am without position or distinction; you are a struggling artist, I am that, too, in my humbler way.Our bread is honest bread, we work for our-living.Hand in hand we will walk hence to the grave, helping each other in all ways, living for each other, being and remaining one in heart and purpose, one in hope and aspiration, inseparable to the end.And though our place is low, judged by the world's eye, we will make it as high as the highest in the great essentials of honest work for what we eat and wear, and conduct above reproach.We live in a land, let us be thankful, where this is all-sufficient, and no man is better than his neighbor by the grace of God, but only by his own merit."Tracy tried to break in, but she stopped him and kept the floor herself.

"I am not through yet.I am going to purge myself of the last vestiges of artificiality and pretence, and then start fair on your own honest level and be worthy mate to you thenceforth.My father honestly thinks he is an earl.Well, leave him his dream, it pleases him and does no one any harm: It was the dream of his ancestors before him.It has made fools of the house of Sellers for generations, and it made something of a fool of me, but took no deep root.I am done with it now, and for good.

Forty-eight hours ago I was privately proud of being the daughter of a pinchbeck earl, and thought the proper mate for me must be a man of like degree; but to-day--oh, how grateful I am for your love which has healed my sick brain and restored my sanity!--I could make oath that no earl's son in all the world--""Oh,--well, but--but--"

"Why, you look like a person in a panic.What is it? What is the matter?""Matter? Oh, nothing--nothing.I was only going to say"--but in his flurry nothing occurred to him to say, for a moment; then by a lucky inspiration he thought of something entirely sufficient for the occasion, and brought it out with eloquent force: "Oh, how beautiful you are! You take my breath away when you look like that."It was well conceived, well timed, and cordially delivered--and it got its reward.

"Let me see.Where was I? Yes, my father's earldom is pure moonshine.