"Why do you speak like that? You know how anything of yours would interest me."
"Oh yes, in a certain way, of course."
"For its own sake, too. I can't criticise, but I know it held me as nothing else ever did. It was horrible in many parts, but I was the better for reading it."
He could not help showing pleasure, and grew more natural. Ida had purposely refrained from speaking of the book when she read it, more than a month ago, always hoping that he would be the first to say something about it. But the news he had brought her to-night put an end to reticence on her side. She must speak out her heart, cost her what it might.
"Who should read it, if not I?" she said, as he remained silent. "Who can possibly understand it half so well as I do?"
"Yes," he remarked, with wilful misunderstanding, "you have seen the places and the people. And I hear you are going on with the work your grandfather began?"
"I am trying to do something. If you had been able to give me a little time now and then, I should have asked you to advise and help me. It is hard to work there single-handed."
"You are too good for that; I should have liked to think of you as far apart from those vile scenes."
"Too good for it?" Her voice trembled. "How can any one be too good to help the miserable? If you had said that I was not worthy of such a privilege—Can you, knowing me as no one else does or ever will, think that I could live here in peace, whilst those poor creatures stint and starve themselves every week to provide me with comforts? Do I seem to you such a woman?"
He only smiled, his lips tortured to hold their peace.