that if he
had but uttered the acknowledgment she judged him on the point of
making--the acknowledgment of his catching at her brave little idea for
their case--she would have found herself, as distinctly, voluble almost
to eloquence.

What befell, however, was that even while she thus waited she felt
herself present at a process taking place rather deeper within him than
the occasion, on the whole, appeared to require--a process of weighing
something in the balance, of considering, deciding, dismissing. He had
guessed that she was there with an idea, there in fact by reason of her
idea; only this, oddly enough, was what at the last stayed his words.
She was helped to these perceptions by his now looking at her still
harder than he had yet done--which really brought it to the turn of a
hair, for her, that she didn't make sure his notion of her idea was the
right one. It was the turn of a hair, because he had possession of
her hands and was bending toward her, ever so kindly, as if to see, to
understand, more, or possibly give more--she didn't know which; and that
had the effect of simply putting her, as she would have said, in
his power. She gave up, let her idea go, let everything go; her one
consciousness was that he was taking her again into his arms. It was
not till afterwards that she discriminated as to this; felt how the act
operated with him instead of the words he hadn't uttered--operated, in
his view, as probably better than any words, as always better, in fact,
at any time, than anything. Her acceptance of it, her response to it,
inevitable, foredoomed, came back to her, later on, as a virtual assent
to the assumption he had thus made that there was really nothing such
a demonstration didn't anticipate and didn't dispose of, and that the
spring acting within herself moreover might well have been, beyond any
other, the impulse legitimately to provoke it. It made, for any issue,
the third time since his return that he had drawn her to his breast; and
at present, holding her to his side as they left the room, he kept her
close for their moving into the hall and across it, kept her for
their slow return together to the apartments above. He had been right,
overwhelmingly right, as to the felicity of his tenderness and the
degree of her sensibility, but even while she felt these things sweep
all others away she tasted of a sort of terror of the weakness they
produced in her. It was still, for her, that she had posi