"Go on!" I said impatiently.
"I can't go on," he rejoined. "You're holding me."
I held him tighter than ever, and ordered him more resolutely than ever to go on. Oscar resigned himself to a halt (foreign fashion) on the high road.
"Mr. Sebright met my question by putting a question on his side," he resumed. "He asked me how I proposed to prepare her for the color of my face."
"And what did you tell him?"
"I said I had planned to make an excuse for leaving Dimchurch—and, once away, to prepare her, by writing, for what she might expect to see when I returned."
"What did he say to that?"
"He wouldn't hear of it. He said, 'I strongly recommend you to be present on the first occasion when she is capable (if she ever is capable) of using her sight. I attach the greatest importance to her being able to correct the hideous and absurd image now in her mind of a face like yours, by seeing you as you really are at the earliest available opportunity.'"
We were just walking on again, when certain words in that last sentence startled me. I stopped short once more.
"Hideous and absurd image?" I repeated, thinking instantly of my conversation of that morning with Lucilla. "What did Mr. Sebright mean by using such language as that?"