Page:E Nesbit - The Literary Sense.djvu/74

62 saw—the relief under the coldness—and he brought up his forces for the attack.

"Dear," he said—almost at once—"forgive me for last night. It was true, and if I had expressed it better you'd have understood. It isn't just the house and garden, and the perfect life. It's you! Don't you understand what it is to come back from the world to all this, and you—you—you—the very centre of the star?"

"It's all very well," she said, "but that wasn't what you said last night."

"It's what I meant," said he. "Dear, don't you see how much I want you?"

"But—I'm old—and plain, and—"

She looked at him with eyes still heavy from last night's tears, and he experienced an unexpected impulse of genuine tenderness.

"My dear," he said, "when I first remember your mother she was about your age. I used to think she was the most beautiful person in the world. She seemed to shed happiness and peace around her—like—like a lamp sheds light. And you are just like her. Ah—don't send me away."