"Well, you are not," he answered. I saw his eyes fall on the books and papers that littered the morning-room sofa, and I felt myself grow red. The books would betray me!
The strange thing was that he pushed them away without ever looking at them! And he sat down beside me.
He had never been so close to me before. I think I was outwardly quite unmoved. But I could not see him, even at a distance, without inward commotion. When he sat down so near me, a great many pulses I had not known before were in my body began to beat and hammer. I felt my heart grow many sizes too big, and my breast-bone ache under the pressure. I said to myself the one essential was that he should not suspect—for him to guess the state he had thrown me into would be the supreme disaster. He might despise me. Almost certainly he would think I was hysterical. I knew the contempt he felt for hysterical women. Never, never should he think me one! I would rather die, sitting rigidly in my corner without a sign, than let him think I had any taint of the hysterical in me!
Above all, for my Great Secret's sake, I must show self-command. Upon that I saw, in a flash, this was the ideal moment for telling him about The Plan.
He asked how had my mother slept. I don't know what I said. But I remember that he spoke very gently of her. And he said I must husband my strength. I stayed too much indoors, he said. Hereafter I was to take an hour's brisk walk every day of my life.
I told him I couldn't always do that in these days.
"You must," he said.
I thought of my books, and shook my head.
"Won't you do it if I ask you to?" he said.
He leaned a little towards me. I dared not look up.