After the interval of a minute or two he remembered himself, and turned round. Seeing her seated, he approached her, and went down on both knees close at her feet. Then he took her hands again, for the third time, and looked up into her eyes.
“Oswald, you on your knees!” she said.
“I would not bend to a princess,” he said, “to ask for half her throne; but I will kneel here all day, if you will let me, in thanks for the gift of your love. I never kneeled to beg for it.”
“This is the man who cannot make speeches.”
“I think I could talk now by the hour, with you for a listener.”
“Oh, but I must talk too.”
“What will you say to me?”
“Nothing while you are kneeling. It is not natural that you should kneel. You are like Samson with his locks shorn, or Hercules with a distaff.”
“Is that better?” he said, as he got up and put his arm round her waist.
“You are in earnest?” she asked.
“In earnest. I hardly thought that that would be doubted. Do you not believe me?”
“I do believe you. And you will be good?”
“Ah—I do not know that.”
“Try, and I will love you so dearly. Nay, I do love you dearly. I do. I do.”
“Say it again.”
“I will say it fifty times—till your ears are weary with it”;—and she did say it to him, after her own fashion, fifty times.
“This is a great change,” he said, getting up after a while and walking about the room.
“But a change for the better;—is it not, Oswald?”
“So much for the better that I hardly know myself in my new joy. But, Violet, we’ll have no delay—will we? No shilly-shallying. What is the use of waiting now that it’s settled?”
“None in the least, Lord Chiltern. Let us say—this day twelvemonth.”
“You are laughing at me, Violet.”
“Remember, sir, that the first thing you have to do is to write to your father.”
He instantly went to the writing-table and took up paper and pen. “Come along,” he said. “You are to dictate it.” But this she refused to do, telling him that he must write his letter to his father out of his own head, and out of his own heart. “I cannot write it,” he said, throwing down the pen. “My blood is in such a tumult that I cannot steady my hand.”
“You must not be so tumultuous, Oswald, or I shall have to live in a whirlwind.”
“Oh, I shall shake down. I shall become as steady as an old stager. I’ll go as quiet in harness by-and-by as though I had been broken to it a four-year-old. I wonder whether Laura could not write this letter.”
“I think you should write it yourself, Oswald.”
“If you bid me I will.”
“Bid you indeed! As if it was for me to bid you. Do you not know that in these new troubles you are undertaking you will have to bid me in everything, and that I shall be bound to do your bidding? Does it not seem to be dreadful? My wonder is that any girl can ever accept any man.”
“But you have accepted me now.”
“Yes, indeed.”
“And you repent?”
“No, indeed, and I will try to do your biddings;—but you must not be rough to me, and outrageous, and fierce—will you, Oswald?”
“I will not at any rate be like Kennedy is with poor Laura.”
“No;—that is not your nature.”
“I will do my best, dearest. And you may at any rate be sure of this, that I will love you always. So much good of myself, if it be good, I can say.”
“It is very good,” she answered; “the best of all good words. And now I must go. And as you are leaving Loughlinter I will say goodbye. When am I to have the honour and felicity of beholding your lordship again?”
“Say a nice word to me before I am off, Violet.”
“I—love—you—better—than all the world beside; and I mean—to be your wife—some day. Are not those twenty nice words?”
He would not prolong his stay at Loughlinter, though he was asked to do so both by Violet and his sister, and though, as he confessed himself, he had no special business elsewhere. “It is no use mincing the matter. I don’t like Kennedy, and I don’t like being in his house,” he said to Violet. And then he promised that there should be a party got up at Saulsby before the winter was over. His plan was to stop that night at Carlisle, and write to his father from thence. “Your blood, perhaps, won’t be so tumultuous at Carlisle,” said Violet. He shook his head and went on with his plans. He would then go on to London and down to Willingford, and there wait for his father’s answer. “There is no reason why I should lose more of the hunting than necessary.” “Pray don’t lose a day for me,” said Violet. As soon as he heard from his father, he would do his father’s bidding. “You will go to Saulsby,” said Violet; “you can hunt at Saulsby, you know.”
“I will go to Jericho if he asks me, only you will
