He turned on his heel and came back to her, and she shrank a little, not knowing why; but he came no nearer than her desk.
"'The thing to do,' he said ... 'is for us both to keep very busy'"
"The thing to do," he said, speaking with forced animation and at random, "is for us both to keep very busy. I think I'll go into farming—raise some dinky thing or other—that's what I'll do. I'll go in for the country squire business—that's what I'll do. And I'll have my neighbours in. I'm never here long enough to ask 'em. They're a funny lot; they're all right, though—deadly respectable. I'll give a few parties—ask some people from town, too. Betty Barkley could run the conventional end of it. And you'd come floating in with other unattached girls——"
"You want me!"
He said, astonished: "Well, why on earth do you suppose I'm taking the trouble to ask the others?"
"You want me—to come—where your friends——"
"Don't you care to?"
"I—don't know." The surprise of it still widened her eyes and parted her lips a little. She looked up at him, perplexed, encountered something in his eyes which made her cheeks redden again.