He has a fine opportunity for poetical reply. The image is in his mind--her own--with the word upon his tongue, "woman's." But he shrinks from giving it utterance. Instead, retreating from the position he had assumed, he rejoins evasively:--
"The truth is, Miss Wynn, I've had a surfeit of tropical scenery, and was only too glad once more to feast my eyes on the hill and dale landscapes of dear old England. I know none to compare with these of the Wyeside."
"It's very pleasing to hear you say that--to me especially. It's but natural I should love our beautiful Wye--I, born on its banks, brought up on them, and, I suppose, likely to----"
"What?" he asks, observing that she has paused in her speech.
"Be buried on them!" she answers laughingly. She intended to have said "Stay on them the rest of my life." "You'll think that a very grave conclusion," she adds, keeping up the laugh.
"One at all events very far off--it is to be hoped. An eventuality not to arise, till after you've passed many long and happy days--whether on the Wye, or elsewhere."
"Ah! who can tell? The future is a sealed book to all of us."
"Yours need not be--at least as regards its happiness. I think that is assured."
"Because it seems to me, as though you had yourself the making of it."
He is saying no more than he thinks; far less. For he believes she could make fate itself--control it, as she can his. And as he would now confess to her--is almost on the eve of it--but hindered by recalling that strange look and sigh sent after Shenstone. His fond fancies, the sweet dreams he has been indulging in ever since making her acquaintance, may have been but illusions. She may be playing with him, as he would with a fish on his hook. As yet, no word of love has passed her lips. Is there thought of it in her heart--for him?
"In what way? What mean you?" she asks, her liquid eyes turned upon him with a look of searching interrogation.
The question staggers him. He does not answer it as he would, and again replies evasively--somewhat confusedly--
"Oh! I only meant, Miss Wynn--that you so young--so--well, with all the world before you--surely have your happiness in your own hands."
If he knew how much it is in his he would speak more courageously, and possibly with greater plainness. But he knows not, nor does she tell him. She, too, is cautiously retentive, and refrains taking advantage of his words, full of suggestion.