"But in how strange a Way!" cried he. "At a Time when anie Renewal of your Intercourse requires to be conducted with the utmost Delicacy, and even with more Shew of Concession on your Part than, an Hour ago, I should have deemed needfulle,—to propose an abrupt, trivial Communication about an old Key!"
"It needed not to have been abrupt," I sayd, "nor yet trivial; for I meant it to have beene exprest kindlie."
"You said not that before," answered he.
"Because you gave me not Time.—Because you chid me and frightened me."
He stood silent, some While, upon this; grave, yet softer, and mechanicallie playing with the Key, which he had taken from my Hand. Rose looking in his Face anxiouslie. At lengthe, to disturbe his Reverie, she playfulle tooke it from him, saying, in School-girl Phrase,
"This is the Key of the Kingdom!"
"Of the Kingdom of Heaven, it mighte be!" exclaimed Roger, "if we knew how to use it arighte! If we knew but how to fit it to the Wards of Milton's Heart!—there's the Difficultie. . . . a greater one, poor Moll, than you know; for hitherto, alle the Reluctance has been on your Part. But now . . ."
"What now?" I anxiouslie askt.
"We were talking of you but as you rejoyned us," sayd Mr. Agnew, "and I was telling Rose that hithertoe I had considered the onlie Obstacle to a Reunion arose from a false Impression of your own, that Mr. Milton coulde not make you happy. But now I have beene led to the Conclusion that you cannot make him soe, which increases the Difficultie."
After a Pause, I sayd, "What makes you think soe?"