But all this might be the result of their old
friendship--it might have nothing to do with love.
Could it be possible that she still remembered the childish nonsense
that had passed between them--that she considered either herself or him
bound by a foolish tie that neither of them had contracted? Could it be
possible that she regarded herself as engaged to him? The bare idea of
it seemed absurd to him; he could not believe it. Yet many little things
that he could not explain to himself made him feel uncomfortable and
anxious. Could it be that she, the most beautiful and certainly the most
popular woman in London, cared so much for him as to hold him by so
slender a tie as their past childish nonsense?
He reproached himself for the thought, yet, do what he would, he could
not drive it away. The suspicion haunted him; it made him miserable. If
it was really so, what was he to do?
He was a gentleman, not a coxcomb. He could not go to this fair woman
and ask her if it was really true that she loved him, if she really
cared for him, if she held him by a tie contracted in childhood. He
could not do it.
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