“That is very kind of you.”
Catharine felt the distinction, the confidence. The sweetest homage which can be offered us is to be entrusted with something which others would misinterpret.
“I should like, Miss Furze, to have some further talk with you about Milton, but I do not quite see” (musingly) “how it is to be managed.”
“Could you not tell us something about him when you and Mrs. Cardew next have tea with us at the Limes?”
“I do not think so. I meant with you, yourself. It is not easy for me to express myself clearly in company—at any rate, I should not hear your difficulties. You seem to possess a sympathy which is unusual, and I should be glad to know more of your mind.”
“When Mrs. Cardew comes here, could you not fetch her, and could we not sit out here together?”
He hesitated. They were walking slowly over the grass towards the gate, and were just beginning to turn off to the right by the side path between the laurels. At that point, the lawn being levelled and raised, there were two stone steps. In descending them Catharine slipped, and he caught her arm. She did not fall, but he did not altogether release her for at least some seconds.
“Mrs. Cardew has no liking for poetry.”
Catharine was silent.
“It is quite a new thing to me, Miss Furze, to find anybody in Abchurch who cares anything for that which is most interesting to me.”