He would not share his thoughts with her. He knew that she had some inklings of taste, but in that moment he preferred to pretend that her artistic perception was on a level with that of William and Mary. They boarded the steamer again, and took their old places; and the menacing problem of their predicament was still between them.
"We can have some tea downstairs if you like," he said, after the steamer had turned round and started upstream.
She answered in tones imperfectly controlled:
"No, thank you. I feel as if I couldn't swallow anything." And she looked up at him very quickly; with the embryo of a smile, and then looked down again very quickly, because she could not bring the smile to maturity.
George thought:
"Am I going to have a scene with her—on the steamer?" It would not matter much if a scene did occur. There was nobody else on deck forward of the bridge. They were alone—they were more solitary than they might have been in the studio, or in any room at No. 8. The steamer was
now nearly heading the wind, but she travelled more smoothly, for she had the last of the flood-tide under her.
George said kindly and persuasively:
"Upon my soul, I don't know what the old gentleman's got against me."
She eagerly accepted his advance, which seemed to give her courage.