‘Why?’ she asked.
‘Because I think you’ll understand it,’ he said; ‘and you’ll read it.’
‘Yes,’ she answered, ‘I shall read it, and I think I shall understand. And now all the lionising will begin.’
Saxonstowe shrugged his shoulders.
‘If the people who really know about these things think I have done well, I shall be satisfied,’ he said. ‘I don’t care a scrap about the reviews in the popular papers—I am looking forward with great anxiety to the criticisms of two or three scientific periodicals.’
‘You were going to run away from the lionising business,’ she said. ‘When are you going?—there is nothing to keep you, now that the book is out.’
Saxonstowe looked at her. He was standing at the edge of the table on which she had placed the two volumes of his book; she was sitting in a low chair at its side. She looked up at him; she saw his face grow very grave.
‘I didn’t think anything would keep me,’ he said, ‘but I find that something is keeping me. It is you. Do you know that I love you?’
The colour rose in her cheeks, and her eyes left his for an instant; then she faced him.
‘I did not know it until just now,’ she answered, laying her hand on one of the volumes at her side. ‘I knew it then, because you wished me to have the first-fruits of your labour. I was wondering about it—as we talked.’