It is singular that this hope should not have led him
instantly to turn his back and move away; but the explanation of his
imprudent delay is simply that he wished to see a little more of Miss
Vivian. He was unable to bring himself to the point. Those clever things
that he might have said to her quite faded away. The only good taste was
to take himself off, and spare her the trouble of inventing civilities
that she could not feel. And yet he continued to sit there from moment
to moment, arrested, detained, fascinated, by the accident of her not
looking round--of her having let him watch her so long. She turned
another page, and another, and her reading absorbed her still. He was
so near her that he could have touched her dress with the point of his
umbrella. At last she raised her eyes and rested them a while on the
blue horizon, straight in front of her, but as yet without turning them
aside. This, however, augmented the danger of her doing so, and Bernard,
with a good deal of an effort, rose to his feet. The effort, doubtless,
kept the movement from being either as light or as swift as it might
have been, and it vaguely attracted his neighbor's attention. She turned
her head and glanced at him, with a glance that evidently expected
but to touch him and pass.
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