"Do you know," she said, suddenly looking up, "you make me very proud,"
and she stretched out her hand to him.
He took it, and, bending, touched it with his lips. There was no
possibility of misinterpreting the action, and though she coloured
a little--for, till then, no man had even kissed the tip of her
finger--she did not misinterpret it. It was an act of homage, and that
was all.
And so they sealed the compact of their perfect friendship for ever and
a day.
Then came a moment's silence. It was Geoffrey who broke it.
"Miss Granger," he said, "will you allow me to preach you a lecture, a
very short one?"
"Go on," she said.
"Very well. Do not blame me if you don't like it, and do not set me down
as a prig, though I am going to tell you your faults as I read them in
your own words. You are proud and ambitious, and the cramped lines in
which you are forced to live seem to strangle you. You have suffered,
and have not learned the lesson of suffering--humility. You have set
yourself up against Fate, and Fate sweeps you along like spray upon
the gale, yet you go unwilling.
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