"Well, what is it you want?" he said at last.
The little model answered by another question.
"Are you really going away, Mr. Dallison?"
"I am."
She raised her hands to the level of her breast, as though she meant to
clasp them together; without doing so, however, she dropped them to
her sides. They were cased in very worn suede gloves, and in this dire
moment of embarrassment Hilary's eyes fastened themselves on those slim
hands moving against her skirt.
The little model tried at once to slip them away behind her. Suddenly
she said in her matter-of-fact voice: "I only wanted to ask--Can't I
come too?"
At this question, whose simplicity might have made an angel smile,
Hilary experienced a sensation as if his bones had been turned to water.
It was strange--delicious--as though he had been suddenly offered all
that he wanted of her, without all those things that he did not want. He
stood regarding her silently. Her cheeks and neck were red; there was a
red tinge, too, in her eyelids, deepening the "chicory-flower" colour
of her eyes. She began to speak, repeating a lesson evidently learned by
heart.
"I wouldn't be in your way. I wouldn't cost much. I could do everything
you wanted. I could learn typewriting. I needn't live too near, or that;
if you didn't want me, because of people talking; I'm used to being
alone.
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