said, very low? but with an attempt to speak lightly, "You have not made
it any better, but I will forget it."
He caught my hand for one instant, then let it go as suddenly. And
neither of us could speak.
There is no position more false and trying than a woman's, when she is
told in this way that a man loves her, and yet has not been told it;
when she must seem not to see what she would be an idiot not to see;
when he can say what he pleases and she must seem to hear only so much.
I did no better and no worse than most women of my years would have
done. At last the silence (which did not seem a silence to me, it was so
full of new and conflicting thoughts,) was broken by the recommencement
of the music in the other room. He had taken a book in his hands and was
turning over its pages restlessly.
"Why have you not danced?" he said at last, in a voice that still showed
agitation.
"I have not danced because I can't, because I never have been taught."
"You? not taught? it seems incredible. But let me teach you. Will you?
Teach you! you would dance by intention. And would love it--madly--as I
did years ago. Come with me, will you?"
"Oh, no," I said, half frightened, shrinking back, "I am not going to
dance--ever."
"Perhaps that is as well," he said in a low tone, meeting my eye for an
instant, and telling me by that sudden brilliant gleam from his, that
then he would be spared the pain of ever seeing me dancing with another.
"But let me teach you something," he said after a moment. "Let me teach
you German--will you?" He sank down in a chair by the table, and leaning
forward, repeated his question eagerly.
"Oh, yes, I should like it so much--if--."
"If--if what? If it could be arranged without frightening and
embarrassing you, you mean?"
"Yes."
"I wonder if you are not more afraid of being frightened and embarrassed
than of any other earthly trial. There are worse things that come to us,
Miss d'Estree. But I will arrange about the German, and you need have no
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