‘That we should always be,’ he said, grasping her hand, ‘that we should always be; and yet without becoming less we might be more. Speak to me frankly, dear; you know all my heart. Do not you think so too?’ CHAPTER XLII. A GREAT REVOLUTION. Notwithstanding the directness of this questioning, it was by no means a direct reply which Mr. Beresford got from Mrs. Meredith. It was not a refusal, but neither was it a consent. ‘Let us not do anything rashly,’ and ‘I think we are very well as we are,’ was what she said, and yet the change was certainly a step nearer accomplishment now that the possibility of it had been mentioned between them. He had grown rather earnest in pressing the expediency of this step as soon as the ice was fairly broken, and had been piqued by her reluctance into more warmth than he had expected himself to feel. Nevertheless, when he came back to his own house, uncomfortable matters of detail came into Mr. Beresford’s mind, and annoyed him more than he could have believed, more than they were worth. About the houses, for instance; if this happened, they could not go on living next door to each other. Would she come to his, or should he go to hers?--if indeed the matter came to anything. This bothered him, and suggested many other details--changes of habit which would bother him still more. Altogether it was a troublesome business. He liked her best in her own drawing-room; but then he liked himself much best in his own library, and there were moments in which he felt disposed to denounce the fool who had first thought of any change. All things considered, how much better it would have been that they should remain as they were! but that was no longer to be thought of. How was he to tell Cara? How was she to tell her boys, upon whom she was so much more dependent than he was upon Cara? If the boys disapproved strenuously, then Mr. Beresford felt it would come to nothing after all; and in that case how much better to have said nothing! for he felt that he would not like to stand in the position of a man refused. So that altogether this middle-aged romance was not without its troubles; troubles--as, for instance, that about the houses--which you may laugh at if you please, but which involved much more personal embarrassment and inconvenience, you will allow, than many of the sentimental difficulties which you are ready to weep over in the romances of the young.