"
"I will come with you," whispered she to Maurice, "but wait a
moment." And she tripped back, and in some five minutes returned
after an eager argument with her friends. "There," she said, "I
don't care about the grotto, one bit, and I will walk with you now;--
only they will think it so odd." And so they started off together.
Before the tropical darkness had fallen upon them Maurice had told
the tale of his love,--and had told it in a manner differing much
from that of Marian's usual admirers, he spoke with passion and
almost with violence; he declared that his heart was so full of her
image that he could not rid himself of it for one minute; "nor would
he wish to do so," he said, "if she would be his Marian, his own
Marian, his very own. But if not--" and then he explained to her,
with all a lover's warmth, and with almost more than a lover's
liberty, what was his idea of her being "his own, his very own," and
in doing so inveighed against her usual light-heartedness in terms
which at any rate were strong enough.
But Marian here it all well. Perhaps she knew that the lesson was
somewhat deserved; and perhaps she appreciated at its value the love
of such a man as Maurice Cumming, weighing in her judgment the
difference between him and the Ewings and the Grahams.
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