"Well there," I said, throwing myself into the position she wanted; "that is easy: but how about that jolly expression? where's that to come from?"
"Can't you imagine for a moment that you are successful, and we are married?"
"A pretty good stretch of the imagination that!" I muttered, "as things are at present!"
And involuntarily I brought my eyes down from the window to the pale, delicate, abstracted face opposite me. I did not intend to convey any reproach to her, but perhaps she thought so, for she seemed to answer that which she took to be in my mind.
"But, Victor, you know," she said, laying down the pencil she had just taken up, "it is in your own hands. I am willing to marry you when you like!"
She said it very gently, but with just a touch of cold restraint that irritated me excessively.
"Oh yes, I know it's all my own confounded fault, but that does not make it any pleasanter. However, let all that pass. I'll look as cheerful as I can."
There was a long silence. She was absorbed in the drawing, and I in my own thoughts, as I stared through the upper pane, as directed, at the grey, drifting, hurrying November clouds. Had I descried a quoit there about to descend upon me I should have been rather pleased than not. At last I became conscious of an intolerable crick in my neck.
"May I move?"
"Oh, one minute! one minute!" she answered, and her voice struck me. It was faint, breathless, mechanical: the voice of a person whose whole being is tense with some straining effort. At least fifteen more minutes of silence passed.