"No, no, I must go!" cried Delafield, rousing himself and looking for his hat.
"I would ask you to stay," said Julie, smiling, "just to show off Léonie's cooking; but there wouldn't be enough for a great big man. And you're probably dining with dukes."
Delafield disclaimed any such intention, and they went back to the drawing-room to look for his hat and stick. Julie still had her arm round Thérèse and would not let the child go. She clearly avoided being left alone with him; and yet it seemed, even to his modesty, that she was loath to see him depart. She talked first of her little ménage, as though proud of their daily economies and contrivances; then of her literary work and its prospects; then of her debt to Meredith. Never before had she thus admitted him to her domestic and private life. It was as though she leaned upon his sympathy, his advice, his mere neighborhood. And her pale, changed face had never seemed to him so beautiful--never, in fact, truly beautiful till now. The dying down of the brilliance and energy of the strongly marked character, which had made her the life of the Bruton Street salon, into this mildness, this despondency, this hidden weariness, had left her infinitely more lovely in his eyes. But how to restrain himself much longer from taking the sad, gracious woman in his arms and coercing her into sanity and happiness!
At last he tore himself away.
"You won't forget Wednesday?" she said to him, as she followed him into the hall.
"No. Is there anything else that you wish--that I could do?"
"No, nothing. But if there is I will ask."
Then, looking up, she shrank from something in his face--something accusing, passionate, profound.
He wrung her hand.
"Promise that you will ask."