The severity of evening dress in line and lack of colour became him well, setting off the lean, sculptured contours of his face, giving value to its even warmth of tone. Traces of silver at his temples hinted at that history, not too happy, with which she was in part acquainted. The strength with which his mouth was modelled affected her, as always, with a faint, strangely pleasant thrill of alarm, the dark, clear eyes, at once deferential and demanding, held her in a spell she had no wish to break.
"I love you," he repeated.
Her brows took on a quaintly plaintive cast. "I know, my friend," she replied in the same tongue and tone. "For a long time I have known . . . as you have known my love was all for you. And yet . . ." The slender shoulders lifting their fairness out of the corsage of her jetted gown sketched a shrug.
"I had to wait to tell you," he said, "till I was sure—"
In indulgent raillery she interrupted: "Sure that you loved me?"
He smiled, but wagged his head in stubborn earnestness: "Sure of what else I must say."
"There is more?"
"Much more." The man leaned over the table, with an even deeper accent of sincerity in his guarded voice: "I love you so dearly, Eve, the thought of a life without you is beyond my understanding . . . Yet I may not ask you to be my wife."
"May not?" Hands of consummate grace fluttered above the cloth in tragicomic impatience. "Or will not?"
"Will not because I may not."