"How is it your fault?" she asked, after a pause.
He made another pause.
"The way I look at you," he said.
These apparently simple words made Hilda tremble, and deprived her of speech. They shifted the conversation to another plane. 'The way I look at you! The way I look at you!' What did he mean? How did he look at her? She could not imagine what he was driving at! Yes, she could! She knew quite well. All the time, while pretending to herself not to understand, she understood. It was staggering, but she perfectly understood. He had looked at her 'like that' on the very first day of their acquaintance, in his office at Turnhill, and again at the house in Lessways Street, and again in the newspaper office, and on other occasions, and again on the night of their arrival at Brighton. But surely not lately! Or did he look at her 'like that' behind her back? Was it possible that people noticed it?... Absurd! His explanation of the origin of the gossip did not convince her. She had, however, suddenly lost interest in the origin of the gossip. She was entirely occupied with George Cannon's tone, and his calm, audacious reference to a phenomenon which had hitherto seemed to her to be far beyond the region of words.
She was frightened. She was like some one walking secure in the night, who is stopped by the sound of rushing water and stands with all his senses astrain, afraid to move a step farther, too absorbed and intimidated to be aware of astonishment. The point was not whether or not she had known or guessed the existence of this unseen and formidable river; the point was that she was thrillingly on its brink, in the dark. Every instant she heard its swelling current plainer and plainer. She thought: "Am I lost? How strange that this awful and exquisite thing should happen to just me!" She was quite fatalistic.
He turned his head suddenly and caught her guilty eyes for an instant before she could lower them.
"You don't mean to say you don't know what I mean?" he said.
She still could not speak. Her trouble was acute, her self-consciousness far keener than it had ever been before. She thought: "But it's impossible that this awful and exquisite thing should happen in this fashion!" George Cannon moved a step towards her. She could not see his face, but she knew that he was looking at her with his expression at once tyrannic and benevolent. She could feel, beating upon her, the emanating waves of his personality. And she was as confused as though she had been sitting naked in front of him.... And he had brought all this about by simply putting something into words--by saying: "It's the way I look at you!"
He went on:
"I can't help it, you know.... The very first minute I ever set eyes on you.... Of course I'm thirty-six. But there it is!... I've never seen any one like you; and I've seen a few! The fact is, Hilda, I do believe you don't know how fine you are." He spoke more quickly and with boyish enthusiasm; his voice became wonderfully persuasive. "You are fine, you know! And you're beautiful! I didn't think so at first, but you are! You're being wasted. Why, a woman like you...! You've no idea. You're so proud and stiff, when you want to be... I'd trust you with anything. You're absolutely the only woman I ever met that I'd trust like a man! And that's a fact.... Now, nobody could ever think as much of you as I do. I'm quite certain of it. It couldn't be done. I know you, you see! I understand everything you do, and whatever you do, it's just fine for me. You couldn't be as happy with any one else! You couldn't! I feel that in my bones.... Now--now, I must tell you something--"