"We can safely take it for granted," said he. "Besides, you have told me so yourself."
"I have told you so—?" she puzzled.
"You have told me that there is but one legitimist in Sampaolo. If my cousin were troubled by your scruples, she would make a second. And of the whole population of the island, can you suggest a less probable second?"
"They say that Queen Anne was at heart a Jacobite," Susanna reminded him. "Your cousin is young. One could lay the case before her, one could work upon her conscience. And, supposing her conscience to be once roused, then, if you could n't be brought to offer her your hand, she 'd have no choice but renunciation and the Cloister."
"Let us hope, therefore, that her conscience may remain comfortably asleep," said he. "For even to save her from the Cloister, I could not offer her my hand."
Susanna, leaning back against the rugged trunk of her elm, gazed down the long shaded avenue, and appeared to muse. Here and there, the sun, finding a way through the green cloud of leaves, a visible fillet of light in the dim atmosphere, dappled the brown earth with rose. In her white frock, her dark hair loose about her brow, a faint colour in her cheeks, her dark eyes musing, musing but half smiling at the same time, I think she looked very charming, very interesting, very warmly and richly feminine, I think she looked very lovely, very lovable; and I don't wonder that Anthony—as his eyes rested upon her, fed upon her—felt something violent happen in his heart.
"Occasion is everything—the occasion has come—the occasion has come," a silent voice seemed to incite him. And as it were unseen hands seemed to push him on.
The blood rushed tumultuously to his head.
"I 'm going to risk it, I 'm going to risk everything," he decreed, suddenly, recklessly.
"There are a thousand reasons why I could not offer her my hand," he said. "One reason is that I am in love with another woman."