"You are born to a life of luxury and self-indulgence."
"My father is a journalist," said Lesley with a smile, in which amusement struggled with offence.
"But your grandfather was an earl! It is possible," with a touch of raillery, "that you prefer earls to general practitioners."
"Of the two, it is the doctor that leads the better life, in my opinion," said Lesley, rather hotly; but immediately cooling down, she added the remark—"My preferences have nothing much, however, to do with the matter."
"Have they not? How little you know your own power!"
Lesley looked at him in much amaze. Whither this conversation was tending it had not yet occurred to her to inquire. But something in his look, as he stood fronting her, brought the color to her cheeks and caused her eyes to sink. She became suddenly a little afraid of him, and wished herself a thousand miles away. Indeed she made one backward step, as if her maidenly instincts were about to manifest themselves in actual flight. But Maurice saw the movement, and made two steps forward, which brought him so close to her that he could have touched her hand if he had wished.
"Don't you understand?" he said, in an agitated voice. "Don't you see that your opinion—your preferences—are all the world to me?"
He paused as if expecting her to reply—leaning a little towards her to catch the word from her lips. But Lesley did not speak. She remained motionless, as pale now as she had been red before—her hands hanging at her sides and her eyes fixed upon the ground. She looked as if she were stricken dumb with dismay.
"I know that I have not recommended myself to you by anything that I have said or done," Maurice went on. "I misjudged you once, and I spoke roughly, rudely, brutally; but it was the way you took what I said which made me understand you. You were so fine, so noble, so sweet! Instead of making my stupidity an excuse for shutting yourself away from what your father was doing, you immediately threw yourself into it, you began to work with him and for him—as of course I might have seen that you would do directly you came to know him. I was a fool, and you were an angel—that summarizes the situation."
A faint smile curled Lesley's lips, although she did not look up. "I am afraid there is not much of the angel about me," she said.