She rose from her seat. “Oh! if you talk in that style, I really am tempted to say that I do. Are there men—women and women—men? My dear Wilfrid, have we changed parts to-night?”
His quickness in retrieving a false position, outwardly, came to his aid. He rose likewise, and, while perfecting the minor details of an easy attitude against the mantelpiece, said: “I am so constituted, Charlotte, that I can't talk of my feelings in a business tone; and I avoid that subject unless... You spoke of a basket just now. Well, I confess I can't bring mine into the market and bawl out that I have so many pounds' weight of the required material. Would a man go to the market at all if he had nothing to dispose of? In plain words—since my fault appears to be, according to your reading, in the opposite direction—should I be here if my sentiments could not reply eloquently to your question?”
This very common masterpiece of cunning from a man in a corner, which suggests with so persuasive an air that he has ruled his actions up to the very moment when he faces you, and had almost preconceived the present occasion, rather won Lady Charlotte; or it seemed to, or the scene had been too long for her vigilance.
“In the affirmative?” she whispered, coming nearer to him.
She knew that she had only to let her right shoulder slip under his left arm, and he would very soon proclaim himself her lover as ardently as might be wished. Why did she hesitate to touch the blood of the man? It was her fate never to have her great heart read aright. Wilfrid could not know that generosity rather than iciness restrained her from yielding that one unknown kiss which would have given the final spring to passion in his breast. He wanted the justification of his senses, and to run headlong blindly. Had she nothing of a woman's instinct?
“In the affirmative!” was his serene reply.
“That means 'Yes.'” Her tone had become pleasantly soft.
“Yes, that means 'Yes,'” said he.
She shut her eyes, murmuring, “How happy are those who hear that they are loved!” and opening them, all her face being red, “Say it!” she pleaded. Her fingers fell upon his wrist. “I have this weakness, Wilfrid; I wish to hear you say it.”
The flush of her face, and tremour of her fingers, told of an unimagined agitation hardly to be believed, though seen and felt. Yet, still some sign, some shade of a repulsion in her figure, kept him as far from her as any rigid rival might have stipulated for.