At the same moment Emile,
with a smile on his face, turned towards her with the fan in his hand.
"Oh, you've found it," she said, with nervous eagerness. "I was so
afraid you'd have all your trouble for nothing."
She extended her hand, with a half-breathless smile, for the fan, but he
caught her outstretched little palm in his own, and held it.
"Ah! but you are not going to leave us, are you?"
In a flash of consciousness she understood him, and, as it seemed to
her, her own nervousness, and all, and everything. And with it came a
swift appreciation of all it meant to her and her future. To be
always with him and like him, a part of this refined and restful
seclusion--akin to all that had so attracted her in this house; not to
be obliged to educate herself up to it, but to be in it on equal terms
at once; to know that it was no wild, foolish youthful fancy, but a
wise, thoughtful, and prudent resolve, that her father would understand
and her friends respect: these were the thoughts that crowded quickly
upon her, more like an explanation of her feelings than a revelation, in
the brief second that he held her hand.
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