Page:The Ambassadors (London, Methuen & Co., 1903).djvu/463

Rh "To a great difference," she said as she kept his hand.

"A great difference—no doubt. But I shall see what I can make of it."

"Shall you make anything so good?" As if remembering what Mrs. Newsome had done, it was as far as she went.

But he had sufficiently understood. "So good as this place at this moment? So good as what you make of everything you touch?" He took a minute to say, for, really and truly, what stood about him there in her offer—which was as the offer of exquisite service, of lightened care, for the rest of his days—might well have tempted. It built him softly round, it roofed him warmly over, it rested, all so firm, on selection. And what ruled selection was beauty and knowledge. It was awkward, it was almost stupid, not to seem to prize such things; yet, none the less, so far as they made his opportunity, they made it only for a moment. She would moreover understand—she always understood.

That indeed might be, but meanwhile she was going on. "There's nothing, you know, I wouldn't do for you."

"Oh, yes—I know."

"There's nothing," she repeated, "in all the world."

"I know. I know, But all the same I must go." He had got it at last. "To be right."

"To be right?"

She had echoed it in vague deprecation, but he felt it already clear for her. "That, you see, is my only logic. Not, out of the whole affair, to have got anything for myself."

She thought. "But, with your wonderful impressions, you'll have got a great deal."

"A great deal"—he agreed. "But nothing like you. "It's you who would make me wrong!"

Honest and fine, she couldn't greatly pretend she didn't see it. Still, she could pretend a little. "But why should you be so dreadfully right?"

He considered, but he kept it straight. "That's the way that—if I must go—you yourself would be the first to want me. And I can't do anything else."