"What think you of the sentiment, Mr. Buckler?"
"Madame," I replied, "for once I am in the fashion, for I gave no heed to it."
I had been, in truth, thinking of her lucky intervention in Marston's narrative, for by her impatience she had prevented him from telling either the date of the gambling-match or the name of the town which I was in such great hurry to reach. Not that I had any solid reason to fear she would discover me on that account, for many a man might have ridden from London to Bristol at the time of the assizes and had naught to do with Sir Julian Harnwood. But I had so begun to dread the possibility of her aversion and hatred, that my imagination found a motive to suspicion lurking in the simplest of remarks.
"'Twas that a man would venture more for his friend than for his mistress," she explained. "What think you of it?"
"Why, that the worthy author has never been in love."
"You believe that?" she laughed.
"'Twixt friend and friend a man's first thought is of himself. Shame on us that it should be so; but, alas! my own experience has proved it. It needs, I fear me, a woman's fingers to tune him to the true note of sacrifice."
"And has your own experience proved that too?" she asked with some hesitation, looking down on the ground, and twisting a foot to and fro upon its heel.
"Not so," I answered in a meaning whisper. "I wait for the woman's fingers and the occasion of the sacrifice."
She shot a shy glance sideways at me, and, as though by accident, her hand fell lightly upon mine. I believed, indeed, that 'twas no more than an accident until she said quietly: "The occasion may come, too."