“You are laughing at me. You think me too strong-minded.”
“I will tell you what I think of you when you have answered me. Now will you promise?”
“I don’t see of what use knowing my address would be to you, because as I shall be living quite alone, I can’t ever see any one.”
“That doesn’t follow. Do you mean that you would live the life of a hermit, and condemn yourself to solitary confinement of your own free will?”
“For a time. There is no help for it.”
“Yes, there is. We are going up to town, some of us, before long. I will ask my mother and Lilian to call on you. But I must know your address. And I could send you tickets for concerts and things, where you could go with your pupils, if you wouldn’t let any one accompany you who would enjoy it more. Would you let me take you to a concert?” he said, bending lower.
Miss Lane looked nervously down, then entreatingly up.
“I couldn’t,” she said, in a low voice.
He saw the pleading reluctance in her eyes, and pressed his advantage.
“You do not know how unhappy it makes me to think of your sacrificing your bright life alone in a dingy London lodging. However nice your pupils and their friends may be to you, their affection or—or esteem—can never be so strong as that of your own disinterested friends.”