“I’m talking all the time,” he said, “and you’re saying nothing. It’s rather a shame . . . because you speak so beautifully.”
“Whatever do you mean?” For a moment her eyes were on his. He dared not look at them. He could not answer her, for the moment seemed full of such an overpowering sweetness.
“Do tell me.”
“Oh, I only mean that when you say a thing like that, it . . . it suggests that everything about you is marvellously clean and clear and musical—” He paused, for he felt that she might laugh at him.
“Yes . . . go on,” she said.
“Like water in a hill country. It makes me feel as if I weren’t within a hundred miles of North Bromwich.”
She laughed softly, but not unkindly.
“No, I’m not a bit like that. I’m really awfully hard and worldly—I wish I were the least bit what you imagine. You’re most awfully young, aren’t you?”
Perhaps she did not mean the word cruelly, but it seemed very cruel to Edwin. It was quite possible that she was a few years older than himself, if age were to be counted by years; but in reality he knew that she was beautifully young, certainly young enough to love and to be loved.
“Don’t let’s talk about me,” she said.