He felt her hands tremble in his. Her surrender of them—was it not fuel to the fire of his hope? He put his lips to them, he kissed them, he covered them with kisses. They were warm, and sweet to smell, faintly, terribly sweet to smell.
At last she drew them away. She shrunk away herself, back along her bench. She bit her lip, in chagrin at her weakness, her self-indulgence. She knew that she was losing ground, precious, indispensable, to that deep-laid, secret, cherished plot of hers. But her heart sang and sang, but a joy such as she had never dreamed of filled it. Oh, she had known that her heart would be filled with joy, when he should say, "I love you"; but she had never dreamed of a joy such as this. This was a joy the very elements of which were new to her; different, not in degree only, but in kind, from any joy she had experienced before. She could not so soon put it by, she could not yet bid herself be stern.
"Look at me. Answer me. I love you. Will you marry me?" he cried.
But she must bid herself be stern. "I must, I must," she thought.
She made a mighty effort.
"No," she said, in a suffocated voice, painfully.
"Oh, look at me," he pleaded. "Why do you keep your face turned away?
Why do you say no? I love you. Will you marry me? Say yes, say yes."
But she did not look at him.
"No. I can't. Don't ask me," she said.
"Why can't you? I love you. I adore you. Why should n't I ask you?"
The palest flicker of a smile passed over her face.