"Had you any reason--any ground for thinking that he cared about her ?" "Great ground," reply I, touching my cheeks with the tips of my fingers, and feeling, with a sense of self-gratulation, that their temperature is gradually, if slowly, lowering, "_every_ ground--at _one_ time!" "At _what_ time!" "In the autumn," say I, slowly; my mind reluctantly straying back to the season of my urgent invitations, of my pressing friendlinesses, "and at Christmas, and after Christmas." "Yes ?" (with a quick eagerness, as if expecting to hear more).
"The boys," continue I, speaking without any ease or fluency, for the subject is always one irksome and difficult to me, "the boys took it quite for granted--looked upon it as a certain thing that he meant seriously until--" "Until what ?" (almost snatching the words out of my mouth).
"Until--well!" (with a short, forced laugh), "until they found that he did not." "And--do you know ?--but of course you do--can you tell me how they discovered that ?" He is looking at me with that same greedy anxiety in his eyes, which I remember in our last fatal conversation about Musgrave.
"He went away," reply I, unable any longer to keep watch and ward over my countenance and voice, rising and walking hastily to the window.
The moment I have done it, I repent.

_However_ red I was, _however_ confused I looked, it would have been better to have remained and faced him.

For several minutes there is silence.

I look out at the stiff comeliness of the variously tinted asters, at the hoary-colored dew that is like a film along the morning grass.

I do not know what _he_ looks at, because I have my back to him, but I think he is looking at Barbara's note again.