Page:O Genteel Lady! (1926).pdf/293

 'You're a funny, spiritual man. You look wise, but not intuitive, and you really are both. If you had asked me only a few months earlier I would not have known what to have said.'

'You would have known if I had asked you out on Bodmin,' he reminded her grimly.

'But how did you know that I was rather...expecting something like that, and planning to say "no"? I really thought it all out before I went down to Liskeard. Then you wouldn't and you wouldn't. I was quite provoked.'

He laughed shortly. 'I saw I had to wait. That the time hadn't come—for me. Well, I waited. Then that afternoon I knew immediately, and your demonstration...after that I couldn't have stopped even if it had been the wrong time. I'm afraid I am not...not a platonic man by nature. I can't manage to kiss lightly and forget it. You had the power, almost from the beginning, to hurt me so much. I could never let my shoulder touch you or caress you in any number of careless ways men caress women.'

Eager as most of her sex to hear that love on his part had been from first sight, she gave him the opportunity to confess it.

'No,' he said slowly, 'not at first, but of course that meeting with Jones was momentous. I can see you now, looking up from your work. Your eyes passed over me, just a glancing blow, and then I saw your face become transfixed as you met his gaze, and I knew you were going to love him and going to suffer, and I thought of you a great deal. And later, about