He had always found this manner a little distressing, and it
baffled him completely now. Still, in another minute he would have to
tell her, whatever her manner or her mood.
"Miss Harden," he began, "you've been so awfully good to me, there's
something that I want most awfully to say to you."
"Well, say it." But there was that in her tone which warned him not to
be too long about it.
"It's something I ought to have said--to have confessed--ages ago--"
"Oh no, really Mr. Rickman, if it's a confession, you mustn't do it
now. We shall never finish at this rate."
"When may I?"
"Some time in the afternoon, perhaps." Her smile, which was
exceedingly subtle, disconcerted him inexpressibly. She turned at once
to the business of the day. The question was whether he would begin on
a new section, or finish this one with her, writing at her dictation?
He too was calm, business-like, detached. He strangled a happy smile
which suggested that her question was absurd. To start a new section
was to work gloomily by himself, at some distant quarter of the room;
to write to her dictation was to be near her, soothed by her voice and
made forgetful by her eyes. Hypocritically he feigned a minute's
reflection, as if it were a matter for hesitation and for choice.
"Wouldn't you find it less tiring if I read and you wrote?"
"No, I had better read. You can write faster than I can."
So he wrote his fastest, while Lucia Harden read out titles to him in
the sonorous Latin tongue.
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