“You didn’t have much sleep then.”
“I might say the same of you.”
Mona looked away.
“No, I didn’t sleep well last night.”
“Why?” Michael’s question was serious, but Mona made an effort to answer lightly.
“Guilty conscience, I suppose.”
Michael did not reply. He put his rifle down against the wall, and taking out his cigarette case, offered it to Mona. She shook her head.
“It’s too early.”
He did not take one himself but put the case back in his pocket, and as if he made up his mind, spoke with sudden resolution.
“Is that man worrying you?”
For a moment Mona looked bewildered.
“What man?”
Her thoughts had been so deeply involved with Char she had forgotten Jarvis Lecker. Then she remembered.
“Oh, no,” she said quickly, “it’s all right. I want never to see him again that’s all.”
“I’m glad,” Michael said, and she heard the relief in his tone.
“It’s nice of you not to think…” Mona hesitated, “what you might have thought last night.”
“I was angry at the time,” Michael admitted, “but I knew that you, of all people, would never tolerate a bounder of that sort.”
He spoke so violently that Mona looked at him in surprise.
“Thank you, Michael. I think that’s one of the few compliments you’ve ever paid me.”
He leant against the wall.
“I suppose you know why I was angry?”
Mona hesitated, and then as she did not answer, he said very quietly,
“You see, I’m in love with you. I always have been.”
“Michael!”
There was no misunderstanding Mona’s tone of genuine surprise.
“All my life I’ve loved you,” Michael went on. “I’ve waited a long time, and I meant to go on waiting until I believed it was the right moment to tell you, to ask you, to marry me. But last night when I saw that man trying to make love to you, it drove me wild. I thought then that I was being a fool, being too cautious and letting other people get ahead of me,”
“But, Michael!” Mona gasped, and then helplessly, “I don’t know what to say.”
“Why should you say anything? I just wanted you to know that I love you and that if you want me, I am here.”
There was something in the utter simplicity of what he said and in his quiet, restrained voice that caught Mona in the throat. She felt the tears were perilously near her eyes and her lips were trembling. She tried to laugh and it was a strange sound that came forth.
“Dear Michael! We’ve known each other for twenty-five years and now you choose dawn in a field of brussels sprouts to propose to me!”
“Does the place matter so very much?” he asked.
Once again she had no words but could only stare across the lake struggling to control her tears. There was a silence between them, but she knew that Michael was waiting and that she must answer him.
“I’d never be the right sort of wife for you, Michael,” she said at length, and her voice quivered.
“That is for me to judge. What you have to decide is whether I could make you happy.”
“I don’t know. I think I’ve lost the capacity for happiness. I think it’s left me for ever.”
Michael took her by the shoulders and turned her round to face him. He stood looking down at her, his face strong and determined in the morning light and yet inexpressibly tender.
“Is something the matter?” he asked. “Is something troubling you? Because if it is, you must tell me.”
He had touched a vulnerable spot and Mona started and tried to draw away from him.
“No, it’s nothing,” she said quickly. “You cannot help me.”
“Why not?” And when she did not respond, he asked, “Are you afraid of me, Mona?”
