“But you're too young yet; and you're going to Italy, to learn in the schools. You wouldn't take a husband there with you, would you? What would the poor devil do?”
“But you are not too young,” said she.
Wilfrid supposed not.
“Could you not go to my Italy with me?”
“Impossible! What! as a dangling husband?” Wilfrid laughed scornfully.
“They would love you too,” she said. “They are such loving people. Oh, come! Consent to come, my lover! I must learn. If I do not, you will despise me. How can I bring anything to lay at your feet, my dear! my dear! if I do not?”
“Impossible!” Wilfrid reiterated, as one who had found moorings in the word.
“Then I will give up Italy!”
He had not previously acted hypocrite with this amazing girl. Nevertheless, it became difficult not to do so. He could scarcely believe that he had on a sudden, and by strange agency, slipped into an earnest situation. Emilia's attitude and tone awakened him to see it. Her hands were clenched straight down from the shoulders: all that she conceived herself to be renouncing for his sake was expressed in her face.
“Would you, really?” he murmured.