He glanced up at her. He could not help observing her spruce footgear smothered in the dust of the road, her straight proud back, her fine profile outlined against the bright colours of the chintz, and her blue-veined hands. And he felt an uncontrollable impulse to tell her how deeply he admired her.
"You are no fool," she pursued; "you must have known that I loved you. Therefore I'm only confirming what you already know. But, believe me, Lord Henry, I am something more than one of your interesting cases."
He protested.
"Yes, I know; you always say women cannot understand men, because to comprehend is to comprise, and the smaller cannot comprise the greater——"
He smiled approvingly.
"You see how accurately I can quote you. That is possibly true. I do not claim to be able to understand you. But surely you will grant me that a woman may have a deep and very real knowledge of being in the presence of something exceptionally great, without precisely understanding it?"
Lord Henry rose. He was blinking rapidly and tugging with more than usual force at his mesh of hair.
"Am I impossible?" she asked hoarsely. "Is the disparity of our ages such that, hitherto, the thought of our being more than friends has been unthinkable to you?"
He went to her side by the window. Words were forming on his lips, but they would make no sentence. She saw his lips moving and noticed his distress.
"Is it not a sign of our deep sympathy that you are the only man in all England in whose presence I forget my ghastly age, my half century and more expended on futilities?"