'What is it?'

'Why must I owe everything to you?'

'Why, dear? Why, because, if you do, it's very much better than your
owing it to anybody else. Proud again?'

Not proud: only second fiddle.

'You know, dear Evan, when two people love, there is no such thing as
owing between them.'

'Rose, I have been thinking. It is not too late. I love you, God knows!
I did in Portugal: I do now--more and more. But Oh, my bright angel!' he
ended the sentence in his breast.

'Well? but--what?'

Evan sounded down the meaning of his 'but.' Stripped of the usual
heroics, it was, 'what will be thought of me?' not a small matter to any
of us. He caught a distant glimpse of the little bit of bare
selfishness, and shrank from it.

'Too late,' cried Rose. 'The battle has commenced now, and, Mr.
Harrington, I will lean on your arm, and be led to my dear friends
yonder. Do they think that I am going to put on a mask to please them?
Not for anybody! What they are to know they may as well know at once.'

She looked in Evan's face.