CHAPTER XXXV 519 seventy-and-seven times."
I had finished the business now. While earnestly wishing to erase from his mind the trace of my former offence, I had stamped on that tenacious surface another and far deeper impression, I had burnt it in.
" Now you will indeed hate me," I said. " It is useless to attempt to conciliate you: I see I have made an eternal enemy of you."
A fresh wrong did these words inflict: the worse, because they touched on the truth. That bloodless lip quivered to a temporary spasm. I knew the steely ire I had whetted. I was heart-wrung.
" You utterly misinterpret my words," I said, at once seizing his hand: " I have no intention to grieve or pain you-- indeed, I have not."
Most bitterly he smiled-- most decidedly he withdrew his hand from mine. " And now you recall your promise, and will not go to India at all, I presume?" said he, after a considerable pause.
" Yes, I will, as your assistant," I answered.
A very long silence succeeded. What struggle there was in him between Nature and Grace in this interval, I cannot tell: only singular gleams scintillated in his eyes, and strange shadows passed over his face. He spoke at last.
" I before proved to you the absurdity of a single woman of your age proposing to accompany abroad a single man of mine. I proved it to you in such terms as, I should have thought, would have prevented your ever again alluding to the plan. That you have done so, I regret-- for your sake."
I interrupted him. Anything like a tangible reproach gave me courage at once. " Keep to common sense, St. John: you are verging on nonsense. You pretend to be shocked by what I have said. You are not really shocked: for, with your superior mind, you cannot be either so dull or so conceited as to