"Rudeness is not always past forgiveness," she said, with a sweet
smile.
Malipieri looked at her gravely and wondered whether he had any right
to take up the challenge. He had never been in love with a young girl
in his life, and somehow it did not seem fair to speak as he had been
speaking. It was very odd that his sense of honour should assert
itself just then. It might have been due to the artificial traditions
of generations without end, before him. At the same time, he knew
something of women, and in her last speech he recognized the womanly
cooing, the call of the mate, that has drawn men to happiness or
destruction ever since the world began. She was a mere girl, of
course, but since he had said so much, she could not help tempting him
to go to the end and tell her he loved her.
Though Malipieri did not pretend to be a model of all the virtues, he
was thoroughly fair in all his dealings, according to his lights, and
just then he would have thought it the contrary of fair to say what
she seemed to expect. He knew instinctively that no one had ever said
it to her before, which was a good reason for not saying it lightly;
and he was sure that he could not say it quite seriously, and almost
certain also that she had not even begun to be really in love herself,
though he felt that she liked him.
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