"I can't let you. You make me ashamed, after all you've done for me.
It's too much."
"It isn't. If I take it, will you let me come and see you?"
"Oh, yes. But—" She shrank, so far as Elise could be said to shrink, a little further back into her corner.
"It's rather far from Wyck," he said. "Still, I could run up once in"—he became pensive—"in three weeks or so."
"For the day—I should be delighted."
"No. Not for the day." He was irritated with this artificial obtuseness. "For the week-end. For the week, sometimes, when I can manage it. I shall say it's business."
She drew back and back, as if from his advance, her head tilted, her eyes glinting at him under lowered lids, taking it all in yet pretending a paralysis of ignorance. She wanted to see—to see how far he would go, before she—She wanted him to think she didn't understand him even now.
It was this half-fascinated, backward gesture that excited him. He drew himself close, close.
"Elise, it's no use pretending. You know what I mean. You know I want you."
He stooped over her, covering her with his great chest. He put his arms round her.