“Come, Stephen, I won’t have that. What did you love me for?”
“It might have been for your mouth?”
“Well, what about my mouth?”
“I thought it was a passable mouth enough——”
“That’s not very comforting.”
“With a pretty pout and sweet lips; but actually, nothing more than what everybody has.”
“Don’t make up things out of your head as you go on, there’s a dear Stephen. Now—what—did—you—love—me—for?”
“Perhaps, ’twas for your neck and hair; though I am not sure: or for your idle blood, that did nothing but wander away from your cheeks and back again; but I am not sure. Or your hands and arms, that they eclipsed all other hands and arms; or your feet, that they played about under your dress like little mice; or your tongue, that it was of a dear delicate tone. But I am not altogether sure.”
“Ah, that’s pretty to say; but I don’t care for your love, if it made a mere flat picture of me in that way, and not being sure, and such cold reasoning; but what you FELT I was, you know, Stephen” (at this a stealthy laugh and frisky look into his face), “when you said to yourself, ‘I’ll certainly love that young lady.’”
“I never said it.”