“Naturally.”
“Ah, but that is over,” she said brightly.
“I hope so,” he replied, forcing his tone to match hers. “Both my worries about you.”
“Both?”
“That I might lose your case, and that you might refuse me.”
There was a beam of love-light in her eyes as she replied, “One of your worries would have been superfluous if I could have refused you, Geoffrey. Don’t look mystified. Should I have been worth worrying about if I were incapable of appreciating all you are and all you have done for me?”
The unconscious irony of the words seemed to stab him. “So little compared with what I should have done,” he murmured; “so far from what I should be.”
Alexia laughed protestingly. “My dear Geoffrey, you are abnormally, unreasonably modest. That the world does not take you at your own valuation is lucky for you, and the world.”
“Yes,” he said, “it is lucky, at least for me. Perhaps if you took me at my own valuation you would not look at me.”
“Geoffrey!” she protested. There is a point beyond which the self-abasement of the man she loves begins to jar on a woman.