"You're entirely right. As you say,
IF she's satisfied, no one else has anything to do with it."
"But have you got any right to assume that she
isn't satisfied?" he asked her with swift directness--"or
any reason for supposing it?"
Miss Madden shook her head, but the negation seemed qualified
by the whimsical smile she gave him. "None whatever,"
she said--and on the instant the talk was extinguished
by the entrance of Lady Cressage.
Thorpe's vision was flooded with the perception of his
rare fortune as he went to meet her. He took the hand
she offered, and looked into the smile of her greeting,
and could say nothing. Her beauty had gathered to it
new forces in his eyes--forces which dazzled and
troubled his glance. The thought that this exquisite
being--this ineffable compound of feeling and fine nerves
and sweet wisdom and wit and loveliness--belonged
to him seemed too vast for the capacity of his mind.
He could not keep himself from trembling a little,
and from diverting to a screen beyond her shoulder
a gaze which he felt to be overtly dimmed and embarrassed.
"I have kept you waiting," she murmured.
The soft sound of her voice came to his ears as from
a distance. It bore an unfamiliar note, upon the strangeness
of which he dwelt for a detached instant. Then its
meaning broke in upon his consciousness from all sides,
and lighted up his heavy face with the glow of a conqueror's
self-centred smile.
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