But that I was here with you where we are and as we are--I just saying this.

Giving myself, in other words, away--and perfectly willing to do it for nothing.

That's all." She paused as if her demonstration was complete--yet, for the moment, without moving; as if in fact to give it a few minutes to sink in; into the listening air, into the watching space, into the conscious hospitality of nature, so far as nature was, all Londonised, all vulgarised, with them there; or even, for that matter, into her own open ears, rather than into the attention of her passive and prudent friend.
His attention had done all that attention could do; his handsome, slightly anxious, yet still more definitely "amused" face sufficiently played its part.

He clutched, however, at what he could best clutch at--the fact that she let him off, definitely let him off.

She let him off, it seemed, even from so much as answering; so that while he smiled back at her in return for her information he felt his lips remain closed to the successive vaguenesses of rejoinder, of objection, that rose for him from within.