With Georgina it was difficult to go into such questions; she had no taste whatever for detail. She was delightful as a woman to love, because when a young man is in love he discovers that; but she could not be called helpful, for she never suggested anything. That is, she never had done so till the day she really proposedfor that was the form it tookto become his wife without more delay. Oh yes, I will marry you: these words, which I quoted a little way back, were not so much the answer to something he had said at the moment as the light conclusion of a report she had just made (for the first time) of her actual situation in her father's house.

III.
I am afraid I shall have to see less of you, she had begun by saying. They watch me so much.
It is very little already, he answered. What is once or twice a week?
That's easy for you to say. You are your own master, but you don't know what I go through.
Do they make it very bad for you, dearest? Do they make scenes? Benyon asked.
No, of course not. Don't you know us enough to know how we behave? No scenes; that would be a relief. However, I never make them myself, and I never willthat's one comfort for you, for the future, if you want to know. Father and mother keep very quiet, looking at me as if I were one of the lost, with little hard, piercing eyes, like gimlets. To me they scarcely say anything, but they talk it all over with each other, and try and decide what is to be done. It's my belief that my father has written to the people in Washingtonwhat do you call it?the Departmentto have you moved away from Brooklynto have you sent to sea.
I guess that won't do much good. They want me in Brooklyn; they don't want me at sea.
Well, they are capable of going to Europe for a year, on purpose to take me, Georgina said.
How can they take you if you won't go? And if you should

 

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go, what good would it do if you were only to find me here when you came back, just the same as you left me?
Oh, well! said Georgina, with her lovely smile, of course they think that absence would cure me ofcure me of And she paused, with a kind of cynical modesty, not saying exactly of what.
Cure you of what, darling? Say it, please say it, the young man murmured, drawing her hand surreptitiously into his arm.
Of my absurd infatuation!
And would it, dearest?
Yes, very likely. But I don't mean to try. I shall not go to Europenot when I don't want to. But it's better I should see less of youeven that I should appeara littleto give you up.
A little? What do you call a little?
Georgina said nothing for a moment. Well, that, for instance, you shouldn't hold my hand quite so tight! And she disengaged this conscious member from the pressure of his arm.
What good will that do? Benyon asked.
It will make them think it's all overthat we have agreed to part.
And as we have done nothing of the kind, how will that help us?
They had stopped at the crossing of a street; a heavy dray was lumbering slowly past them. Georgina, as she stood there, turned her face to her lover and rested her eyes for some moments on his own. At last, Nothing will help us; I don't think we are very happy, she answered, while her strange, ironical, inconsequent smile played about her beautiful lips.
I don't understand how you see things. I thought you were going to say you would marry me, Benyon rejoined, standing there still, though the dray had passed.
Oh yes, I will marry you! And she moved away across the street. That was the way she had said it, and it was very characteristic of her. When he saw that she really meant it, he wished they were somewhere elsehe hardly knew where the proper place would beso that he might take her in his arms. Nevertheless, before they separated that day he had said to

 

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her he hoped she remembered they would be very poor, reminding her how great a change she would find it. She answered that she shouldn't mind, and presently she said that if this was all that prevented them the sooner they were married the better. The next time he saw her she was quite of the same opinion; but he found, to his surprise, it was now her conviction that she had better not leave her father's house. The ceremony should take place secretly, of course; but they would wait awhile to let their union be known.
What good will it do us, then? Raymond Benyon asked. Georgina coloured. Well, if you don't know, I can't tell you!
Then it seemed to him that he did know. Yet, at the same time, he could not see why, once the knot was tied, secrecy should be required. When he asked what especial event they were to wait for, and what should give them the signal to appear as man and wife, she answered that her parents would probably forgive her if they were to discover, not too abruptly, after six months, that she had taken the great step.

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