So she clasped her hands together suddenly, and she said:
"But do you know we have grown serious, and I asked you to amuse me, Lord Bracondale!"
"I cannot amuse you," he said, lazily, "but shall I tell you about my home, which I should like to show you some day?" And again he began to caress the farthest edge of her dress with his wild flower. Just the smallest movement of smoothing it up and down that no one could resent, but which was disturbing to Theodora. She did not wish him to stop, on the contrary—and yet—
"Yes, I would like to hear of that," she said. "Is it an old, old house?"
"Oh, moderately so, and it has nooks and corners and views that might appeal to you. I believe I should find them all endowed with fresh charm myself, if I could see them with you"—and he made the turning-point of his flower a few inches nearer her hand.
Theodora said nothing; but she took courage and peeped at him again. And she thought how powerful he looked, and how beautifully shaped; and she liked the fineness of the silk of his socks and his shirt, and the cut of his clothes, and the wave of his hair—and last of all, his brown, strong, well-shaped hands.
And then she fell to wondering what the general scheme of things could be that made husbands possess none of these charms; when, if they did, it could all be so good and so delicious, instead of a terribly irksome duty to live with them and be their wives.
"You are not listening to a word I am saying!" said Hector. "Where were your thoughts, cruel lady?"
She was confused a little, and laughed gently. "They were away in a land where you can never come," she said.