Page:The Golden Bowl (Scribner, New York, 1909), Volume 2.djvu/38

THE GOLDEN BOWL didn't hesitate to break with the spoon. So much as that she would, with an opening, have allowed herself furthermore to observe; she wanted him to understand how her scheme embraced Charlotte too; so that if he had but uttered the acknowledgement she judged him on the point of making—the acknowledgement of his catching at her brave little idea for their case—she would have found herself, as distinctly, voluble almost to eloquence.

What befell however was that even while she thus waited she felt herself present at a process taking place rather deeper within him than the occasion, on the whole, appeared to require—a process of weighing something in the balance, of considering, deciding, dismissing. He had guessed that she was there with an idea, there in fact by reason of her idea; only this, oddly enough, was what at the last stayed his words. She was helped to these perceptions by his now looking at her still harder than he had yet done—which really brought it to the turn of a hair for her that she didn't make sure his notion of her idea was the right one. It was the turn of a hair because he had possession of her hands and was bending toward her, ever so kindly, as if to see, to understand more, or possibly give more—she didn't know which; and that had the effect of simply putting her, as she would have said, in his power. She gave up, let her idea go, let everything go; her one consciousness was that he was taking her again into his arms. It was not till afterwards that she discriminated as to this; felt how the act operated with him instead of the words he hadn't uttered—operated in his view as probably better 28