hat
attitude of preparation, he said--

"Do you command me to go?" No familiar spirit could have suggested to
him more effective words.

"No," said Gwendolen. She could not let him go: that negative was a
clutch. She seemed to herself to be, after all, only drifted toward the
tremendous decision--but drifting depends on something besides the
currents when the sails have been set beforehand.

"You accept my devotion?" said Grandcourt, holding his hat by his side
and looking straight into her eyes, without other movement. Their eyes
meeting in that way seemed to allow any length of pause: but wait as
long as she would, how could she contradict herself! What had she
detained him for? He had shut out any explanation.

"Yes," came as gravely from Gwendolen's lips as if she had been
answering to her name in a court of justice. He received it gravely,
and they still looked at each other in the same attitude. Was there
ever such a way before of accepting the bliss-giving "Yes"? Grandcourt
liked better to be at that distance from her, and to feel under a
ceremony imposed by an indefinable prohibition that breathed from
Gwendolen's bearing.

But he did at length lay down his hat and advance to take her hand,
just pressing his lips upon it and letting it go again. She thought his
behavior perfect, and gained a sense of freedom which made her almost
ready to be mischievous. Her "Yes" entailed so little at this moment
that there was nothing to screen the reversal of her gloomy prospects;
her vision was filled by her own release from the Momperts, and her
mother's release from Sawyer's Cottage. With a happy curl of the lips,
she said--

"Will you not see mamma? I will fetch her."

"Let us wait a little," said Grandcourt, in his favorite attitude,
having his left forefinger and thumb in his waist-coat pocket, and with
his right hand caressing his whisker, while he stood near Gwendolen and
looked at her--not unlike a gentleman who has a felicitous introduction
at an evening party.

"Have you anything else to say to me," said Gwendolen, playfully.

"Yes--I know having things said to you is a great bore," said
Grandcourt, rather sympathetically.

"Not when they are things I like to hear."

"Will it bother you to be asked how soon we can be married?"

"I think it will, to-day," said Gwendolen, putting up her chin saucily.

"Not to-day, then, but to-morrow. Think of it before I come to-morrow.
In a fortnight--or three week