Part 14 (1/2)
Gregory, holding the little locket, looked at it silently. Then he put it to his lips. ”You care for me, don't you, Karen?” he said.
”You know, I think,” said Karen, repeating her former words.
He laid the locket in her hand, and the moment had for him a sacramental holiness so that the locket was like a wedding-ring; holding it and her hand together he said, lifting his eyes to hers, ”I love you. Do you love me?”
Her eyes had filled with tears when he had kissed her mother's face, and there was young awe in her gaze; but no shadow, no surprise.
”Yes,” she said, unhesitatingly. ”Yes, I love you, dear Gregory.”
The simplicity, the inevitableness of his bliss overwhelmed him. He held her hand and looked down at it. All about them was the blue. All her past, its beauty, its dark, forgotten things, she had given to him. She was his for ever. ”Oh, my darling Karen,” he murmured.
She bent down to look at him now, smiling and unclosing her hand from his gently, so that she could look at her mother's face. ”How glad she would be if she could know,” she said. ”Perhaps she does know. Do you not think so?”
”Dear--I don't know what I think about those hopes. I hope.”
”Oh, it is more than hope, my belief that she is there; that she is not lost. Only one cannot tell how or when or where it all may be. For that, yes, it can be only hope. She, too, would love you, I am sure,” Karen continued.
”Would she? I'm glad you think so, darling.”
”We are so much alike, you see, that it is natural to feel sure that we should think alike. Do you not think that her face is much like mine?
What happiness! I am glad it is not a day of rain for our happiness.”
And she then added, ”I hope we may be married.”
”Why, we are to be married, dear child,” Gregory said, smiling at her.
”There is no 'may' about it, since you love me.”
”Only one,” said Karen, who still looked at her mother's face. ”And perhaps it will be well not to speak much of our love till we can know.
But I feel sure that she will say this happiness is for me.”
”She?” Gregory repeated. For a moment he imagined that she meant some superst.i.tion connected with her mother.
Karen, slipping the ribbon over her head, had returned the locket to its place. ”Yes; Tante,” she said, still with the locket in her hand.
”Tante?” Gregory repeated.
At his tone, its change, she lifted startled eyes to his.
”What has she to do with it?” Gregory asked after a moment in which she continued to gaze at him.
”What has Tante to do with it?” said Karen in a wondering voice. ”Do you think I could marry without Tante's consent?”
”But you love me?”
”I do not understand you. Was it wrong of me to have said so before I had her consent? Was that not right? Not fair to you?”
”Since you love me you ought to be willing to marry me whether you have your guardian's consent or not.” His voice strove to control its bitterness; but the day had darkened; all his happiness was blurred. He felt as if a great injury had been done him.
Karen continued to gaze at him in astonishment. ”Would you have expected me to marry you without my mother's consent? She is in my mother's place.”
”If you loved me I should certainly expect you to say that you would marry me whether your mother consented or not. You are of age. There is nothing against me. Those aren't English ideas at all, Karen.”