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.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Tempting of Tavernake, by E. Phillips Oppenheim

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