‘But surely there’s no harm in my saying—’ he paused in astonishment. ‘I meant nothing that could offend you.’
‘I know you didn’t, Jasper. But you make me think that—’
‘Don’t be so literal again, my dear girl. Come here and forgive me.’
She did not approach, but only because the painful thought he had excited kept her to that spot.
‘Come, Marian! Then I must come to you.’
He did so and held her in his arms.
‘Try your hand at a novel, dear, if you can possibly make time. Put me in it, if you like, and make me an insensible masculine. The experiment is worth a try I’m certain. At all events do a few chapters, and let me see them. A chapter needn’t take you more than a couple of hours I should think.’
Marian refrained from giving any promise. She seemed irresponsive to his caresses. That thought which at times gives trouble to all women of strong emotions was working in her: had she been too demonstrative, and made her love too cheap? Now that Jasper’s love might be endangered, it behoved her to use any arts which nature prompted. And so, for once, he was not wholly satisfied with her, and at their parting he wondered what subtle change had affected her manner to him.
‘Why didn’t Marian come to speak a word?’ said Dora, when her brother entered the girls’ sitting-room about ten o’clock.
‘You knew she was with me, then?’