‘I did not mean you should,’ said Ben. He had come up very wild in his passion, with a hundred violent, tender words on his lips to say; but when he came before her, and gazed down on her passionless face, somehow the fire went out of him. A kind of wonder stole over his mind,--a wonder not unusual to men before such a woman. Was it anything to her at all,--anything out of the ordinary way? The meeting, the parting,--which shook his very being,--was it merely an every-day incident with her, saying, ‘Good-bye to poor Mr. Renton?’ He stood and gazed, with his heart in his eyes, at the calm creature. The very marble warms a little on its surface, at least, under the shining of the sun. When she raised her lovely eyes to him,--undimmed, unbrightened, no haze of feeling nor sparkle of excitement in them,--shining calmly, as they always did, a sense of half adoration, half scorn, awoke in Ben’s mind. Was she chillier than the marble, then? Or was not this passionless sweetness of the woman, before the fiery love which blazed about her, a something half divine? ‘You do not care much,’ he said. ‘I was a fool to think you would care; and yet I have been counting the moments till this moment should come.’
‘It is very kind of you to think so much of me,’ said Millicent; ‘and I did want to see you, Mr. Renton. I wanted to tell you that I never for one moment thought,--never imagined you would do anything, like what you have done. I should not have told you, had I thought so; I should have died sooner.’
‘Oh, Millicent! is this all you have to say to me?’ cried her lover. ‘I wish it was at the bottom of the sea;--I wish---- Never mind. Think for one moment, if you can, that I have never done anything--except--love you. That does not sound much,’ the young man went on, stooping down, almost kneeling before her, that his eyes might help his words. A smile of half disdain at himself broke over his face as he caught her eye. ‘It does not sound much,’ he cried. ‘You will say to yourself, small thanks to him,--everybody does that; but it is everything in the world to me. Have you nothing to say to me for that, Millicent?--not one word?’
‘It is very kind of you. You are very good,--you always were very good to me,’ said Millicent, hurriedly under her breath, with a glance at the door. Undoubtedly, Mrs. Tracy’s presence would have been a relief now.