Page:The Other House (London, William Heinemann, 1896), Volume 2.djvu/38

24 Beever's tea-table, an old green wooden bench that was a perennial feature of the spot. "If Miss Armiger knows that I'm a judge," she pursued as they went, "it's, I think, because she knows everything—except one, which I know better than she." She seated herself, glancing up and putting out her free hand to him with an air of comradeship and trust. Paul let it take his own, which he held there a minute. "I know you." She drew him down, and he dropped her hand; whereupon it returned to his little box, which, with the aid of the other, it tightly and nervously clasped. "I can't take your present. It's impossible," she said.

He sat leaning forward with his big red fists on his knees. "Not for your birthday?"

"It's too splendid for that—it's too precious. And how can I take it for that when it isn't for that you offer it? How can I take so much, Paul, when I give you so little? It represents so much more than itself—a thousand more things than I've any right to let you think I can accept. I can't pretend not to know—I must meet you half way. I want to do that so much—to keep our relations happy, happy always, without a break or a cloud. They will be—