"You didn't—" He hesitated, stammered, and grew red. "You didn't—" he began again. "You'll have to excuse the question.... I simply must know, by Jove!... You didn't ask him for it?"
She rose with dignity. "If you'll come in I'll tell you about it. We can't talk out here."
He came up the portico steps to the level on which she was standing. "Tell me that first," he begged.
"You didn't ask him for it? Did you?"
In the French window, as she was about to enter the room, she half turned round. "I don't think it would bear that construction; but it might. I'd rather you judged for yourself. I declined it at first—and then I said I'd take it. I don't know whether you'd call that asking. But please come in."
He followed her into the oval room, where they were screened from neighborly observation, while, with the French window open, they had the advantage of the air and the rich, westering sunshine. Birds hopped about in the trees, and now and then a gray squirrel darted across the grass.
"I should think," he said, nervously, before she had time to begin her explanation, "that a fellow who had done that for you would occupy your mind to the exclusion of everybody else."
Guessing that he hoped for a disclaimer on her part, she was sorry to be unable to make it.
"Not to their exclusion—but perhaps—a little to their subordination."
He pretended to laugh. "What a pretty distinction!"