He caught my hand for one instant, then let it go as suddenly. And neither of us could speak.
There is no position more false and trying than a woman's, when she is told in this way that a man loves her, and yet has not been told it; when she must seem not to see what she would be an idiot not to see; when he can say what he pleases and she must seem to hear only so much. I did no better and no worse than most women of my years would have done. At last the silence (which did not seem a silence to me, it was so full of new and conflicting thoughts,) was broken by the recommencement of the music in the other room. He had taken a book in his hands and was turning over its pages restlessly.
"Why have you not danced?" he said at last, in a voice that still showed agitation.
"I have not danced because I can't, because I never have been taught."
"You? not taught? it seems incredible. But let me teach you. Will you? Teach you! you would dance by intention. And would love it--madly--as I did years ago. Come with me, will you?"
"Oh, no," I said, half frightened, shrinking back, "I am not going to dance--ever."
"Perhaps that is as well," he said in a low tone, meeting my eye for an instant, and telling me by that sudden brilliant gleam from his, that then he would be spared the pain of ever seeing me dancing with another.
"But let me teach you something," he said after a moment. "Let me teach you German--will you?" He sank down in a chair by the table, and leaning forward, repeated his question eagerly.
"Oh, yes, I should like it so much--if--."
"If--if what? If it could be arranged without frightening and embarrassing you, you mean?"