‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘Don’t speak louder than that. It suits the place to whisper. What are you thinking about?’
‘You,’ said Paul ‘I think of nothing else.’
‘You silly boy,’ said Miss Belmont. ‘Why should you think about me?’
‘I can’t help it I wake up to think of you. I think of you all day. I go to sleep thinking of you. I dream about you in the night-time.’
‘Oh, you silly Paul!’ Her lips smiled, but her eyes dreamed unchangingly on the landscape. ‘Why do you think of me?’
‘Because I love you,’ said Paul.
The hand which held his own seemed to encourage him to draw nearer, and yet the sign, if there were any sign at all, was so faint that he was afraid to obey it She turned her head slowly to look at him. Her round soft chin stirred the lace at her shoulder and was half hidden by it, and she sat placidly dreaming at his ardent eyes just as she had dreamed at the hills.
‘I think you do,’ she said sweetly; ‘but that is all nonsense. You are only a boy, and I am a middle-aged woman.’
‘Middle-aged!’ said Paul, with a fiery two-syllabled laugh of scorn at the idea.
‘A woman is middle-aged at five-and-twenty. Didn’t you know that, Paul? She took his hand within her own, and played with it ‘What a beautiful hand!’ she said. ‘But you don’t take care of it. You treat it carelessly. Now, I spend half an hour on my hands every day. Let me show you the difference,’ and she began to draw off her glove.