His sallow face was flushed, his eyes
glowed with a sort of beauty; and Audrey Noel who, better than most
women, could read what was passing behind a face, saw those eyes
with the delight of a moth fluttering towards a lamp. But in a very
unemotional voice she said:
"So you have come to breakfast. How nice of you!"
It was not in Miltoun to observe the formalities of attack. Had he been
going to fight a duel there would have been no preliminary, just a look,
a bow, and the swords crossed. So in this first engagement of his with
the soul of a woman!
He neither sat down nor suffered her to sit, but stood looking intently
into her face, and said:
"I love you."
Now that it had come, with this disconcerting swiftness, she was
strangely calm, and unashamed. The elation of knowing for sure that
she was loved was like a wand waving away all tremors, stilling them to
sweetness. Since nothing could take away that knowledge, it seemed that
she could never again be utterly unhappy. Then, too, in her nature,
so deeply, unreasoningly incapable of perceiving the importance of any
principle but love, there was a secret feeling of assurance, of triumph.
He did love her! And she, him! Well! And suddenly panic-stricken, lest
he should take back those words, she put her hand up to his breast, and
said:
"And I love you.
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