"Don't let us miss it," and then felt a grip of terror at his heart. He
had been content to go to the brink of a precipice and lean over,
trusting to a barrier; here was the barrier withdrawn, and he left,
dizzily attracted by his danger, and already making a step nearer. It
seemed, indeed, as if he were two men, the one pushing, urging towards
it, with taunt of cowardice, the other stiffening into resistance, and
stammering--"Unless Miss Tempest would like us to return with her?"
Anne glanced at him. This second thought did not please her, though she
knew enough to be assured that there would be no hesitation with Mary,
who hurried shy protestations and fled. The others walked on. Anne was
sensitive, and marked a change in Wareham's manner; he talked of books
and impersonal matters, she listened unheedingly, occupied in reflecting
why, with Mary's presence withdrawn, he ceased to be expansive. "He is
afraid," she said to herself, and set womanly wits to find out the why.
It was possible that he believed her to intend to accept Lord
Milborough. Some remarks on the beauty of the park set her inveighing
against overgrown places.
"I can understand Alexander's sigh for worlds to conquer," she said,
"but not the joy of possession. Persons may be found, I suppose, who
look at Lord Milborough with veneration because he is lord of half a
county. That is inconceivable to me."
"You are not ambitious of power?"
"Of power, yes. What woman is not? But brains before acres, and the
owners of acres are apt to cultivate them and let their brains lie
fallow."