"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.
"I will!"
"And be English altogether?"
"Be yours!"