ith an exquisite content; her hand lay in his neither lifelessly nor
entirely passively, yet only lightly returning the light pressure of his
fingers. To her the situation was the supreme moment of a life; to him
it was passionless as the betrothal piece in a Flemish window.

"Anastasia," he said, "you guess what it is I have to tell you; you
guess what it is that I have to ask you."

She heard him speaking, and his voice was as delightful music in her
delightful dream; she knew that he was going to ask something of her,
and she knew that she would give him anything and all that he asked.

"I know that you love me," he went on, with an inversion of the due
order of the proposition, and an assumption that would have been
intolerable in anyone else, "and you know that I love you dearly." It
was a proper compliment to her perspicuity that she should know already
that he loved her, but his mind smiled as he thought how insufficient
sometimes are the bases of knowledge. "I love you dearly, and am come
to ask you to be my wife."

She heard what he said, and understood it; she had been prepared for his
asking anything save this one thing that he had asked. The surprise of
it overwhelmed her, the joy of it stunned her; she could neither speak
nor move. He saw that she was powerless and speechless, and drew her
closer to him. There was none of the impetuous eagerness of a lover in
the action; he drew her gently towards him because it seemed appropriate
to the occasion that he should do so. She lay for a minute in his arms,
her head bent down, and her face hidden, while he looked not so much at
her as above her. His eyes wandered over the mass of her dark-brown
wavy hair that Mrs Flint said was not wavy by nature, but crimped to
make her look like a Blandamer, and so bolster up her father's
nonsensical pretensions. His eyes took full account of that wave and
the silken fineness of her dark-brown hair, and then looked vaguely out
beyond till they fell on the great flower-picture that hung on the
opposite wall.

The painting had devolved upon Westray on Mr Sharnall's death, but he
had not yet removed it, and Lord Blandamer's eyes rested on it now so
fixedly, that he seemed to be thinking more of the trashy flowers and of
the wriggling caterpillar, than of the girl in his arms. His mind came
back to the exigencies of the situation.

"Will you marry me, Anastasia--will you marry me, dear Anstice?" The
home name seeme