Other
women have fallen, as men choose to put it in their odious dialect;
no other has voluntarily risen as I propose to do.'" She paused a
moment for breath. "Now you know how I feel," she continued,
looking straight into his eyes. "Say no more at present; it is
wisest so. But go home and think it out, and talk it over with me
tomorrow."
IV.
That night Alan slept little. Even at dinner his hostess, Mrs.
Waterton, noticed his preoccupation; and, on the pretext of a
headache, he retired early to his own bedroom. His mind was full
of Herminia and these strange ideas of hers; how could he listen
with a becoming show of interest to Ethel Waterton's aspirations on
the grand piano after a gipsy life,--oh, a gipsy life for her!--
when in point of fact she was a most insipid blonde from the cover
of a chocolate box? So he went to bed betimes, and there lay long
awake, deep wondering to himself how to act about Herminia.
He was really in love with her. That much he acknowledged frankly.
More profoundly in love than he had ever conceived it possible he
could find himself with any one.
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