Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. III, 1889.djvu/147

Rh the sight of which was intolerable to Jane. And not for a full hour did he speak anything but casual words. Jane had taken her sewing; unexpectedly he addressed her.

“Let’s have a word or two together, Jane. I think we ought to, oughtn’t we?”

She forced herself to regard him.

“I think you meant what you said last night?”

“Grandfather, I will do whatever you bid me. I’ll do it faithfully. I was ungrateful. I feel ashamed to have spoken so.”

“That’s nothing to do with it, Jane. You’re not ungrateful; anything but that. But I’ve had a night to think over your words. You couldn’t speak like that if you weren’t driven to it by the strongest feeling you ever knew or will know. I hadn’t thought of it in that way; I hadn’t thought of you in that way.”

He began gently, but in the last words was a touch of reproof, almost of scorn. He gazed at her from under his grey eyebrows, perhaps hoping to elicit some resistance of her spirit, some sign of strength that would help him to reconstruct his shattered ideal.