“Well?” she said softly, looking up. “Talk to me.”
“Haven’t got anything to say. I’m tired. I prefer to look at you instead.”
“You are a dear to say so,” she answered. “But all the same I want livening up. I am getting a dreadful fossil—we all are—stuck away here, and never seeing a soul. I believe I shall get mother to let me go away for quite a long time. I am horribly tired of it all.”
“And of me?”
“You know I am not.”
The blue eyes were very soft as they met his. A wave of feeling swept over the man. Looking at her in her winning, inviting beauty as she sat there, an overwhelming impulse came upon him to claim her—to take her for his own. Why should he not? He knew that it lay entirely with him. He made a movement to rise. In another moment she would be in his arms, and he would be pouring words of passion and tenderness into her ear. The door opened.
“Haven’t those two come in yet?” said Mrs Wenlock briskly, as she re-entered, and quietly resumed her seat, thus unconsciously affecting a momentous crisis in two lives. Was it for good or for ill? We shall see.
Note 1. “You d—d Englishman! Be quiet. I’ll knock your head off just now.”