"Lady Maresfield knows why I didn't come," Rose answered at last.
"Ah, now, but _I_ don't, you know; can't you tell ME?" asked the
young man.
"It doesn't matter, if your mother's clear about it."
"Oh, but why make such an awful mystery of it, when I'm dying to
know?"
He talked about this, he chaffed her about it for the rest of his
visit: he had at last found a topic after his own heart. If her
mother considered that he might be the emblem of their redemption he
was an engine of the most primitive construction. He stayed and
stayed; he struck Rose as on the point of bringing out something for
which he had not quite, as he would have said, the cheek. Sometimes
she thought he was going to begin: "By the way, my mother told me to
propose to you." At other moments he seemed charged with the
admission: "I say, of course I really know what you're trying to do
for her," nodding at the door: "therefore hadn't we better speak of
it frankly, so that I can help you with my mother, and more
particularly with my sister Gwendolen, who's the difficult one? The
fact is, you see, they won't do anything for nothing. If you'll
accept me they'll call, but they won't call without something
'down.
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