He catches her hands and draws her up gently into a kneeling position once more—a position that brings her slender body resting against his knees.
"Must I?" She pauses as if in amused thought, and then, leaning confidentially across his knees, says, "Well, then, I dreamt that you were madly in love with me! And, oh, the joy of it!"
She breaks off, and gives way to irrepressible laughter. Covering her face with her hands, she peeps at him through her fingers as a child might who is bent on mischief.
"Is all that true?" asks Maurice, colouring.
"What, the first dream or the second?"
"I presume one is as true as the other," somewhat stiffly.
"You are a prophet," says Tita, with a little grimace. "Well now, go on, do. We have arranged for Margaret." She pauses, and then says very softly, "Darling Margaret! Do you know, I believe she is the only friend I have in the world?"
Her words cut him to the heart.
"And I, Tita, do I not count?" asks he.
"You! No!" She gives him a little shake, taking his arms, as she kneels beside him. "You represent Society, don't you? And Society forbids all that. No man's wife is his friend nowadays."