"This isn't sudden to me, and I've wondered at moments if you haven't felt me coming to it.

I've been coming ever since we left Fawns--I really started while we were there." He spoke slowly, giving her, as he desired, time to think; all the more that it was making her look at him steadily, and making her also, in a remarkable degree, look "well" while she did so--a large and, so far, a happy, consequence.

She wasn't at all events shocked--which he had glanced at but for a handsome humility--and he would give her as many minutes as she liked.

"You mustn't think I'm forgetting that I'm not young." "Oh, that isn't so.

It's I that am old.