"That is not my view in this case. However, it is right for me to do what you wish. And I will, though it is very hard."
Here Rachel, feeling all her body like one great beating heart, moved away to the door, driven by a stern sense of social duty.
Her companion did not follow her, and she paused on the threshold, turned round, and then suddenly hurried back to him.
"Mr. Dalrymple," she said, putting out her hand with an impulsive gesture, "do not wish you had gone to Queensland instead of coming here to-night. If you do I shall be miserable!"
He seized her hand immediately, and stooping his tall head at the same moment, brushed it with his moustache. Then, looking up into her scared face, he said—like a man binding himself by some terrible oath:
"That I never will."
Once before in that room they had touched the point where not only mere acquaintance but warmest friendship ends. Then it had been to her a new, incomprehensible experience; now she could not help seeing the reason and the meaning of it, though, perhaps, not so clearly as he.
In a moment she had drawn her hand away, and like a bird frightened from its nest, had vanished out of his sight, leaving him—thoroughly aroused from his normal impassiveness—gazing at the empty doorway behind her.
When they met again, ten minutes afterwards, it was in the drawing-room, which was crowded with people; and through all the crush and noise, she was as acutely conscious of his presence as if he alone had been there.
She moved about with tremulous restlessness and downcast eyes; afraid to look at him—afraid he should look at her; paying her little civilities mechanically, and conducting herself generally, to her aunt's extreme annoyance, more like a bashful schoolgirl and a poor relation than ever.