But all that went. . . .
With the answering gaze of Edward into Florence's blue and
uplifted eyes, she knew that it had all gone. She knew that that
gaze meant that those two had had long conversations of an
intimate kind--about their likes and dislikes, about their natures,
about their views of marriage. She knew what it meant that she,
when we all four walked out together, had always been with me
ten yards ahead of Florence and Edward. She did not imagine that
it had gone further than talks about their likes and dislikes, about
their natures or about marriage as an institution. But, having
watched Edward all her life, she knew that that laying on of
hands, that answering of gaze with gaze, meant that the thing was
unavoidable. Edward was such a serious person.
She knew that any attempt on her part to separate those two would
be to rivet on Edward an irrevocable passion; that, as I have
before told you, it was a trick of Edward's nature to believe that
the seducing of a woman gave her an irrevocable hold over him
for life. And that touching of hands, she knew, would give that
woman an irrevocable claim--to be seduced. And she so despised
Florence that she would have preferred it to be a parlour-maid.
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