"You are always right—too right!" he said, half-impatiently. "If you could be a little less generous——"
"What then?" said Elizabeth.
"Why, then, you would be—more human, perhaps, more like ourselves—but less than what we have always taken you for," said Mr. Stretton, smiling.
Elizabeth laughed. "You have spoilt the effect of your lecture," she said, turning away.
"I beg your pardon. I ought not to have said what I did," said Brian, sensitively alive to her slightest change of tone. "Miss Murray, tell me at least that I have not offended you before you go."
"You have not offended me," she said. He could not see her face.
"You are quite sure?" he said, anxiously. "For, indeed, I had forgotten that it was not my part to offer any opinion upon your conduct, and I am afraid that I have given it with impertinent bluntness. You will forgive me?"
She turned round and looked at him with a smile. There was a colour in her cheek, a softness in her eye, that he did not often see. "Indeed, Mr. Stretton," she said, gently, "I have nothing to forgive. I am very much obliged to you."
He took a step towards her as if there was something else that he would have gladly said; but at that moment the sound of the boys' voices echoed through the hall.
"There is no time for more," said Brian, with some annoyance.