‘You must not talk so,’ said Agnes, roused to something like anger. ‘You know very well that, meeting me as you have done, it is wrong; it is not the part of a gentleman to talk so.’
‘Is it not the part of a gentleman to admire, to reverence—to love?’ Oswald said the last words almost under his breath, and yet she heard them, notwithstanding the noises in the street.
‘Mr. Meredith!’ She gave him an indignant look, but it ended in a blush, which ran like a warm suffusion all over her, and checked further words on her lips.
‘I know your name, too,’ he said. ‘And it is not love only, but reverence, that is in my heart. Oh, Agnes! don’t turn me away! May not my mother come, when she is well enough to go anywhere, and plead my cause? She might speak if I may not.’
‘Oh, go away, please, go away,’ said Agnes, in distress. ‘We are almost at the House again.’
‘And why should not we be at the House, if you will let me hope?’ cried Oswald. ‘I don’t want to skulk away! Yes, I will go and hide myself somewhere if you will not hear me. I shall not care what becomes of me. But Agnes——’
‘Oh, Mr. Meredith! Go, please. I cannot think it is right. I—don’t understand you. I ought not to listen to you—in this dress; and I have only begun the work.’
‘There are other kinds of work. There is the natural work. Is not a wife better than a sister?’
Agnes lighted up with the sudden flash which was characteristic of her. She raised her eyes to him glowing with indignant fire, her face suffused with colour. ‘Better?’ she said; ‘better to live for one’s self and one other than for the poor and helpless and the miserable! Oh! do you know what you say? You are a tempter; you are not a true Christian! Better! when there are so many who are wretched and friendless in the world, with no one to care whether they live or die? Do you think a woman does better who tries to make you happy than one who gives herself up for them?’
In the heat of this sudden burst of controversial eloquence, she turned aside into another street, which led out of the way of the House. Nothing else would have tempted her to such a curious breach of decorum; but the argument did, which filled her with indignant fervour. She did it only half consciously, by impulse, burning to know what he would answer, what plea he could bring up against her. But here Oswald’s cleverness failed him. He was not wise enough to see that a little argument would have led her on to any self-committal. He answered softly, with mistaken submission.