there was no going back and which represented thereby the
sacrifice of his vessels, and what he further said was to stand for the
redoubled thrust of flame that would make combustion sure. "This isn't
sudden to me, and I've wondered at moments if you haven't felt me coming
to it. I've been coming ever since we left Fawns--I really started while
we were there." He spoke slowly, giving her, as he desired, time to
think; all the more that it was making her look at him steadily, and
making her also, in a remarkable degree, look "well" while she did
so--a large and, so far, a happy, consequence. She wasn't at all events
shocked--which he had glanced at but for a handsome humility--and he
would give her as many minutes as she liked. "You mustn't think I'm
forgetting that I'm not young."

"Oh, that isn't so. It's I that am old. You ARE young." This was what
she had at first answered--and quite in the tone too of having taken
her minutes. It had not been wholly to the point, but it had been
kind--which was what he most wanted. And she kept, for her next words,
to kindness, kept to her clear, lowered voice and unshrinking face.
"To me too it thoroughly seems that these days have been beautiful. I
shouldn't be grateful to them if I couldn't more or less have imagined
their bringing us to this." She affected him somehow as if she had
advanced a step to meet him and yet were at the same time standing
still. It only meant, however, doubtless, that she was, gravely and
reasonably, thinking--as he exactly desired to make her. If she would
but think enough she would probably think to suit him. "It seems to me,"
she went on, "that it's for YOU to be sure."

"Ah, but I AM sure," said Adam Verver. "On matters of importance I never
speak when I'm not. So if you can yourself FACE such a union you needn't
in the least trouble."

She had another pause, and she might have been felt as facing it while,
through lamplight and dusk, through the breath of the mild, slightly
damp southwest, she met his eyes without evasion. Yet she had at the end
of another minute debated only to the extent of saying: "I won't pretend
I don't think it would be good for me to marry. Good for me, I mean,"
she pursued, "because I'm so awfully unattached. I should like to be a
little less adrift. I should like to have a home. I should like to have
an existence. I should like to have a motive for one thing more than
another--a motive outside of myself. In fact," she sa