had at this, it struck him, an inspiration; which he required however
a minute or two to decide to carry out; a minute or two during which
the shake of his foot over his knee became an intensity of fidget. "Of
course I know I still owe you a large sum of money. If it's about _that_
you wish to see me," he went on, "I may as well tell you just here that
I shall be able to meet my full obligation in the future as little as
I've met it in the past. I can never," said Herbert Dodd, "pay up that
balance."

He had looked at her while he spoke, but on finishing looked off at the
sea again and continued to agitate his foot. He knew now what he had
done and why; and the sense of her fixed dark eyes on him during his
speech and after didn't alter his small contentment. Yet even when she
still said nothing he didn't turn round; he simply kept his corner as
if _that_ were his point made, should it even be the last word between
them. It might have been, for that matter, from the way in which she
presently rose, gathering herself, her fine umbrella and her very small
smart reticule, in the construction of which shining gilt much figured,
well together, and, after standing another instant, moved across to the
rail of the terrace as she had done before and remained, as before, with
her back to him, though this time, it well might be, under a different
fear. A quarter of an hour ago she hadn't tried him, and had had that
anxiety; now that she had tried him it wasn't easier--but she was
thinking what she still could do. He left her to think--nothing in fact
more interesting than the way she might decide had ever happened to him;
but it was a part of this also that as she turned round and came nearer
again he didn't rise, he gave her no help. If she got any, at least,
from his looking up at her only, meeting her fixed eyes once more in
silence, that was her own affair. "You must think," she said--"you
must take all your time, but I shall be at home." She left it to him
thus--she insisted, with her idea, on leaving him something too. And
on her side as well she showed an art--which resulted, after another
instant, in his having to rise to his feet. He flushed afresh as he did
it--it exposed him so shabbily the more; and now if she took him in,
with each of his seedy items, from head to foot, he didn't and couldn't
and wouldn't know it, attaching his eyes hard and straight to something
quite away from them.

It stuck in his throat to say