The Tempting of Tavernake
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E. Phillips Oppenheim >> The Tempting of Tavernake
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He leaned across the table. Their dinner had taken long in
preparing and the dusk was falling now. Over them were the
stars, the band was playing soft music, the hubbub of the streets
lay far below. Almost they were in a little world by themselves.
"Dear Beatrice," he said, "three times I asked you to marry me
and you would not, and I asked you because I was a selfish brute,
and because I knew that it was good for me and that it would save
me from things of which I was afraid. And now I am asking you
the same thing again, but I have a bigger reason, Beatrice. I
have been alone most of the last two years, I have lived the sort
of life which brings a man face to face with the truth, helps him
to know himself and others, and I have found out something."
"Yes?" she faltered. "Tell me, Leonard."
"I found out that it was you I cared for always," he continued,
"and that is why I am asking you to marry me now, Beatrice, only
this time I ask you because I love you, and because no one else
in the world could ever take your place or be anything at all to
me."
"Leonard!" she murmured.
"You are not sorry that I have said this?" he begged.
She opened her eyes again.
"I always prayed that I might hear you say it," she answered,
"but it seems--oh, it seems so one-sided! Here am I starving and
penniless, and you--you, I suppose, are well on the way towards
the success you worshiped."
"I am well on the way," he said, earnestly, "towards something
greater, Beatrice. I am well on the way towards understanding
what success really is, what things count and what don't. I have
even found out," he whispered, "the thing which counts for more
than anything else in the world, and now that I have found it
out, I shall never let it go again."
He pressed her hand and she looked across the table at him with
swimming eyes. The waiter, who had been approaching, turned
discreetly away. The band started to play a fresh tune. From
down in the streets came the clanging of the cars. A curious,
cosmopolitan murmur of sounds, but between those two there was
the wonderful silence.
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