Kipps, page 149 by H.G. Wells
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e out of existence, and spoke again of the view. 'When I see scenery--and things that --that are beautiful, it makes me feel--'
She looked at him suddenly, and saw him fumbling for his words.
'Silly like,' he said.
She took him in with her glance, the old look of proprietorship it was, touched with a certain warmth. She spoke in a voice as unambiguous as her eyes. 'You needn't,' she said. 'You know, Mr. Kipps, you hold yourself too cheap.'
Her eyes and words smote him with amazement. He stared at her like a man who awakens. She looked down.
'You mean--' he said; and then, 'Don't you hold me cheap?'
She glanced up again and shook her head.
'But--for instance--you don't think of me--as an equal like.'
'Why not?'
'Oo! But, reely--'
His heart beat very fast.
'If I thought--' he said; and then, 'You know so much.'
'That's nothing,' she said.
Then for a long time, as it seemed to them, both kept silence --a silence that said and accomplished many things.
'I know what I am,' he said at length... 'If I thought it was possible... If I thought you. ... I believe I could do anything--'
He stopped, and she sat downcast and strikingly still.
'Miss Walshingham,' he said, 'is it possible that you... could care for me enough to--to 'elp me? Miss Walshingham, do you care for me at all?'
It seemed she was never going to answer. She looked up at him. 'I think,' she said, 'you are the most generous--look at what you have done for my brother!--the most generous and the most modest of--men. And this afternoon--I thought you were the bravest.'
She turned her head, glanced down, waved her hand to some one on the terrace below, and stood up.
'Mother is signalling,' she said. 'We must go down.'
Kipps became polite and deferential by habit, but his mind was a tumult that had nothing to do with that.
He moved before her towards the little door that opened on the winding stairs--'always precede a