Page:The Other House (London, William Heinemann, 1896), Volume 1.djvu/192

178 She drank a little and then, putting down the cup, came back to him. "I should be asking too much of you only if you were asking too much of her. You're so far from that, and your position's so perfect. It's too beautiful, you know, what you offer."

"I know what I offer and I know what I don't," Paul returned; "and the person we speak of knows exactly as well. All the elements are before her, and if my position's so fine it's there for her to see it quite as well as for you. I agree that I'm a decent sort, and that, as things are going, my business, my prospects, my guarantees of one kind and another, are substantial. But just these things, for years, have been made familiar to her, and nothing, without a risk of greatly boring her, can very well be added to the account. You and my mother say I take too much for granted; but I take only that." This was a long speech for our young man, and his want of accent, his passionless pauses, made it seem a trifle longer. It had a visible effect on Rose Armiger, whom he held there with widening eyes as he talked. There was an intensity in her face, a bright sweetness that, when he stopped,