"But three hundred a year is not abject poverty," answers the girl in a quiet tone, not denying his theory for fear of being called again theatrical.
"No," he admits. "Oh, it might do very well as long as there were only two; but then, when there are children, it means a nurse, and all sorts of expenses."
He says the words with a simplicity and directness that makes the girl almost catch her breath. For these two were not on intimate terms with each other, not even terms of intimate speaking.
Nothing had passed between them yet but the merest society phrases, and before a certain quiet dinner one month back neither knew of the other's existence. Since then some chance meetings on the beach, the parade, the pier, a few long afternoon rows, between then and now: these are the only nourishment the flame in either breast has received—a flame kindled in a few long glances across the dinner-table.
But this afternoon he has laid aside the customary phrases and deliberately commenced the present conversation.
True, it is purely an abstract one—all theory and hypotheses. No one could say otherwise if it were repeated. Not a personal word has been uttered on either side; but the girl feels in the determined tone of his voice, in the studied way he started it, in the cold precision with which he follows it, that it is practically a test conversation of herself, and that she is virtually passing through an examination.
He has come this afternoon with a set of certain questions that he means to put, to all of which her answers are received without comment, and mentally noted down.
He neither repeats himself, nor presses a point, nor leaves out anything on his mental list, nor allows any remark to lead away from it.
He has also certain things he means to say, which he will say, as he asks his questions, deliberately, one after the other; and then, when he has heard and said all he intends, he will terminate the conversation as decisively as he began it and go. The girl feels all this, for her brain is as clear and keen as the glance of her eyes.
She knows that he is testing her: that she stands upon trial before him.