"Shall we make an appointment for to-morrow?" he asked, after they had
been talking some time.
"Yes--but there is one thing I wanted to ask you--"
"What is that?" inquired Orsino, seeing that she hesitated.
The faint colour rose in her cheeks, but she looked straight into his
eyes, with a kind of fearless expression, as though she were facing a
danger.
"Tell me," she said, "in Rome, where everything is known and every one
talks so much, will it not be thought strange that you and I should be
driving about together, looking for a house for me? Tell me the truth."
"What can people say?" asked Orsino.
"Many things. Will they say them?"
"If they do, I can make them stop talking."
"That means that they will talk, does it not? Would you like that?"
There was a sudden change in her face, with a look of doubt and anxious
perplexity. Orsino saw it and felt that she was putting him upon his
honour, and that whatever the doubt might be it had nothing to do with
her trust in him. Six months earlier he would not have hesitated to
demonstrate that her fears were empty--but he felt that six months
earlier she might not have yielded to his reasoning.
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