“Yes, you are capable of being sorry,” he decided. For a few moments of silence his eyes rested upon the view spread before him. To give the expression of dignified reflection was not a bad idea either.
“Do you know,” he said at length, “that you produce an extraordinary effect upon me, Betty?”
She was occupying herself by adding a few stitches to one of Rosy's ancient strips of embroidery, and as she answered, she laid it flat upon her knee to consider its effect.
“Good or bad?” she inquired, with delicate abstraction.
He turned his face towards her again—this time quickly.
“Both,” he answered. “Both.”
His tone held the flash of a heat which he felt should have startled her slightly. But apparently it did not.
“I do not like 'both,'” with composed lightness. “If you had said that you felt yourself develop angelic qualities when you were near me, I should feel flattered, and swell with pride. But 'both' leaves me unsatisfied. It interferes with the happy little conceit that one is an all-pervading, beneficent power. One likes to contemplate a large picture of one's self—not plain, but coloured—as a wholesale reformer.”
“I see. Thank you,” stiffly and flushing. “You do not believe me.”
Her effect upon him was such that, for the moment, he found himself choosing to believe that he was in earnest. His desire to impress her with his mood had actually led to this result. She ought to have been rather moved—a little fluttered, perhaps, at hearing that she disturbed his equilibrium.