They looked at each other.
“You love Amy Waring.”
His face became inscrutable, and his eyes were fixed quietly upon hers. She betrayed no embarrassment, but continued,
“Amy Waring loves you.”
A sudden light shot into that inscrutable face. The clear eyes were veiled for an instant by an exquisite emotion.
“What separates you?”
There was an authority in the tone of the question which Lawrence Newt found hard to resist. It was an authority natural to such intimate knowledge of the relation of the two persons. But he was so entirely unaccustomed to confide in any body, or to speak of his feelings, that he could not utter a word. He merely looked at Aunt Martha as if he expected her to answer all her own questions, and solve every difficulty and doubt.
Meanwhile she had resumed her sewing, and was rocking quietly in her chair. Lawrence Newt arose and found his tongue. He bowed in that quaint way which seemed to involve him more closely in himself, and to warn off every body else.
“I prefer to hear that a woman loves me from her own lips.”
The tone was perfectly kind and respectful; but Aunt Martha felt that she had been struck dumb.