?

Whichever it was, her fascination was so persuasive that he found
himself yielding to her proposal as if it were the most natural thing
in the world. He accepted it as humbly, as gratefully, as gravely, as
if it were a thing actually in her power to bestow. If he could have
suspected her of any intention to patronize him, he could not have
resented it, knowing as he did its pathetic impotence.

"I know it isn't the best way," she said, "but it _is_ a way.

"It's a glorious way."

"I don't know about the glory. But you will see Florence and Venice
and Rome, and they are glorious."

Yes, he would see them, if she said so. Why not? In this ideal and
fantastic world, could any prospect be more ideal and fantastic than
another?

"And you will have plenty of time to yourself. You will be a great
deal alone. Too much alone perhaps. You must think of that. It might
really be better for you to stay in London where you are beginning to
make friends."

Was she trying to break it to him as gently, as delicately as possible
that there would be no intimacy between him and her? That as her
private secretary his privacy would be painfully unbroken?

She saw it and corrected herself. "Friends, I mean, who may be able to
help you more. You must choose between the two advantages. It will be
a complete break with your old life."

"That would be the best thing that could happen to me."

This time she did not see. "Well--don't be in a hurry. There isn't any
hurry. Remember, it means a whole year out of your life."

A whole year out of his life? Was that the way she looked at it?

Yes. She was giving him his chance; but she did not conceive herself
to be giving him anything more. She understood him sufficiently to
trust him; her insight went so far and no farther. She actually
believed that there could be a choice for him between seeing her every
day for a whole year and never seeing her again. Evidently she had not
the remotest conception of his state of mind. He doubted whether it
could have occurred to her to allow for the possibility of her private
secretary falling in love with her in the innermost privacy of his
secretaryship. He saw that hers was not the order of mind that
entertains such possibilities on an intimate footing. She was
generous, large-sighted; he understood that she would let herself be
carried away on the superb sweep of the impersonal, reckless of
contingencies. He also understood that with this parti