“Whether you can accept me or not,” he said, “I have just to tell you that I am entirely yours. Is there any chance for me, Sylvia?”
He stood quite still, making no movement towards her. She, on her side, found all her distaste of him suddenly vanished in the mere solemnity of the occasion. His very quietness told her better than any protestations could have done of the quality of what he offered, and that quality vastly transcended all that she had known or guessed of him.
“I don’t know, Michael,” she said at length.
She came a step forward, and without any sense of embarrassment found that she, without conscious intention, had put her hands on his shoulders. The moment that was done she was conscious of the impulse that made her do it. It expressed what she felt.
“Yes, I feel like that to you,” she said. “You’re a dear. I expect you know how fond I am of you, and if you don’t I assure you of it now. But I have got to give you more than that.”
Michael looked up at her.
“Yes, Sylvia,” he said, “much more than that.”
A few minutes ago only she had not liked him at all; now she liked him immensely.
“But how, Michael?” she asked. “How can I find it?”
“Oh, it’s I who have got to find it for you,” he said. “That is to say, if you want it to be found. Do you?”