"I'm too busy, Dick," she said, gravely. "I want to finish this handkerchief; besides, it's too hot. Suppose you coil yourself up like a good little doggie, and go to sleep——. Well, if you must you must, I suppose!" And she let him snuggle into her lap, where, seeing that she really meant it, he immediately went to sleep.
It was a lovely afternoon. There was no one on the beach excepting herself, and all was silent save for the drowsy yawing of the gulls and the heavy boom of the tide as it went out, for the sea was very seldom calm at Portmaris, and in the least windy of days there was generally a ground-swell on.
Leslie sat and worked, and thought, thought mostly of Mr. Ralph Duncombe, her persistent suitor; but once or twice the remembrance of the deformed cripple who had come to lodge at Marine Villa crossed her mind, and she was thinking of him pityingly when the sound of footsteps crunching firmly and uncompromisingly over the pebbles made her start, and caused the terrier to leap up with the fury of its kind.
Leslie's brows came together as she looked up.
A middle-sized young man, with broad shoulders and a rather clumsy but steady gait, was coming down the beach. He was not a good-looking man. He had a big head and red hair, a large mouth and a square jaw; his feet and hands were also large, and there was in his air and manner something which indicated aggressiveness and obstinacy.
Sharp men who had seen him as a boy had said, "That chap will get on," and, unlike most prophets, they had been correct; Ralph Duncombe had "got on." He had started as an errand boy in a city office, and had risen step by step until he had become a partner. Rawlings & Co. had always been well thought of in the city, but Rawlings and Duncombe had now become respected and eminent.
His square, resolute face flushed as he saw her, but the hand with which he took off his hat was as steady as a rock.
"Good-morning, Miss Lisle," he said, making his voice heard above the dull roar of the sea and the shrill barking of the terrier.
Leslie held out one hand while she held the furiously struggling Dick with the other.
He took her hand in his huge fist, and dropped heavily on the shingle beside her.
"I didn't know you had a dog," he said, glancing at her and then at the dog, and then at the sea, as a man does who is so much head-over-heels in love that he cannot bear the glory of his mistress' face all at once.
"I haven't," said Leslie, laughing in the slow, soft way which her adorers found so bewitching—and agonizing. "He doesn't really belong to me, though he pretends that he does. He is the abandoned little animal of Mrs. Merrick, our landlady; but he will follow me about and make a nuisance of himself. Be quiet, Dick, or I shall send you home."
"I'm not surprised," said Ralph Duncombe, with a slight flush, and still avoiding her eyes. "I can sympathize with Dick."
Leslie colored, and took up her work, leaving Dick to wander gingerly round the visitor and smell him inquisitively.
"You got my letter, Miss Leslie?"
"No," she said. "I am very sorry; but papa lost it."
He smiled as if he were not astonished.
"It doesn't matter," he said. "It only said that I was coming and—here I am."
"I—I will go and tell papa; you will come and have some lunch?"
"No don't get up," he said, quickly putting out his hand to stay her. "I've had my lunch, and I can go and see Mr. Lisle presently if——," he paused. "Miss Leslie, I suppose you know why I have come down here?"
Leslie bent her head over her work. She could guess. Such a man as Mr. Ralph Duncombe was not likely to come down to such a place as Portmaris in obedience to a mere whim.
"I've come down because I said that I would come about this time," he went on, slowly and firmly, as if he had well rehearsed his speech—as, indeed, he had. "I'm a man who, when he has set his heart upon anything, doesn't change or give it up because he doesn't happen to get it all at once. I've set my heart upon making you my wife, Miss Leslie——."
Leslie's face flushed, and she made a motion as if to get up, but sank back again with a faint sigh of resignation.
"That's been my keenest wish and desire since I saw you two years ago; and it's just as keen, no less and no more, as it was the first half hour I spent in your society."
"You—you told me this before, Mr. Duncombe," said Leslie, not angrily nor impatiently, but very softly.
"I know," he assented. "And you told me that it couldn't be. And I suppose most men would have been satisfied—or dissatisfied, and given it up. But I'm not made like that. I shouldn't be where I am and what I am if I were. I dare say you think I'm obstinate."
The faintest shadow of a smile played on Leslie's lips.
"Yes!" she said. "But—but may I not be obstinate, too?" pleadingly.
"No," he said, gravely. "You are a woman, a girl, little more than a child, and I'm a man, a man who has fought his way in the world, and knows what it is; and that makes it different."
"But——."
"Wait a minute," he said. "You said 'no' because—well, because I'm not good-looking, because I haven't the taking way with me which some men have; in short, because there's nothing about me that would be likely to take a romantic girl's fancy——."
Leslie laughed softly.
"Who told you that I am romantic, Mr. Duncombe?" she said.
"All girls—young girls who don't know the world—are romantic," he said, as if he were remarking that the world is round, and that two and two make four. "You look at the outside of things, and because I'm not handsome and a—swell—you think you couldn't bring yourself to love me, and that I'm not worth loving."
Leslie shook her head.
"I respect you very much. I like you, Mr. Duncombe," she said, in a low voice.
"Very well. That's all I ask," he retorted, promptly. "Be my wife and I'll change your respect into liking, your liking into love. I'm satisfied with that. When a man's starving he is thankful for half a loaf."
He didn't plead his cause at all badly, and Leslie's gray eyes melted and grew moist.
"Don't shake your head," he said. "Just listen to me first. You know I love you. You can't doubt that. If you did, and you knew what I've given up to come down here, you wouldn't doubt any longer. And you wouldn't if you knew what this love of mine costs me. A business man wants all his wits about him if he means to succeed; he wants all his thoughts and energies for his business; and for the last two years my wits and my thoughts have been wandering after you. It's a wonder that I have succeeded; but I have. Miss Leslie, though I'm plain to look at, I believe I've got brains. If I can't offer you a title——."
Leslie smiled; it was so likely that anyone would offer her a title!
"I can at least make you a rich woman."
Her face flushed.
"Mr. Duncombe——."
"I know what you are going to say. All girls declare that they don't care for money, and they mean it. But that's nonsense. A beautiful woman's beautiful whether she's poor or rich, but she's more likely to be happy with plenty of money. And you shall have plenty. I am a rich man now, as times go, and I mean to be richer. I've been working these two years with one object before me. I've made the money solely that I might become less unworthy to offer myself. Miss Leslie, my heart is yours already, such as it is. Be my wife, and share my home and fortune with me!"
Leslie's lips trembled.
"Oh, if I could!" she murmured, almost inaudibly. "I am so sorry, so sorry!"
He took up a pebble, looked hard at it, and cast it from him.
"You mean that you can't love me?"