“I shall come to-morrow!” he said, taking her face between his hands and kissing it. “We’ll go out into the country if it’s fine. I wish it were summer-time! Have you ever seen the river, Clemence?”
“Not in the country,” she said. “It must be nice! How much you’ve seen! Do you know I often think that you must wish sometimes I was a lady! I don’t know anything and I haven’t seen anything, and——” she faltered, and he rose, laughing and drawing her up into his arms.
“Any one can know things,” he said lightly, “and any one can see things. But no one but you can be Clemence! Do you see? Oh, what a bore it is to have to go!”
He was lingering, undecidedly, as though a little pressure would have scattered his resolution to the winds, and seated him once more in the chair he had just quitted. But, since he had said that he must go, it never occurred to Clemence to ask him to stay. If it were not his duty he would never leave her. If it was his duty now, how could she hold him back!
“To-morrow will come!” she said, looking into his face with a brave smile.
“I don’t believe you want me to stay!” he returned, half laughing, half vexed.
“Don’t I?” she said simply, and he caught her in his arms again.
“What a shame!” he said. “There, good-bye! Are you coming to the door?”
She shook her head.
“I’ll stay here,” she said, “and watch you from the window. I see you farther so. Ah, it’s rather foggy! I’m so sorry! You’ll look up? Good-bye!”