Miss Pamela Pounce, coming from church and stepping in the same direction—she had grown singularly attentive to Aunt Lydia—came plump upon the Beau as their paths converged at the Piccadilly gate. His dark face kindled while her blooming cheek grew pale.
“La, to be sure, sir, who’d ha’ thought of meeting you?”
“Why, and is it you, Pamela?”
His eye ran her up and down. She was clad in shimmering blue-lilac taffety, and her wide-brimmed hat, of the kind which Sir Joshua had set the rage, was trimmed with broad silk ribbons of the same shade. She wore a plain muslin kerchief; a black ribbon tied back her unpowdered chestnut curls. She made a very pleasant picture; all, with perfect taste, within a certain modest compass becoming her station.
There was no mistaking the emotion evoked in her by the sight of him. Her breath came quickly; her clear gaze fluttered and fell, and her pallor was succeeded by a flame of carnation.
Now out of the black mood in Mr. Bellairs’s soul there flashed an evil fire.
“Of all the meetings in the whole world,” cried he, ardently, “there’s none could give me half so much joy, my dearest creature. Turn with me. I must speak with you. Nay, Pamela, I vow, I vow, you’ve not been out of my thoughts this month. Turn and come with me, I say. Let us away under the trees, where we can talk by ourselves. Pamela, dearest Pamela, take my arm. You are more lovely than ever, and I am—I am more headlong in love than ever I was before!”
There was too great a flutter in the girl’s soul for her to have her usual cool grip of the situation. An overwhelming tide of happiness lifted her from her mental balance. She could not doubt that, after all these months, it must be a genuine love that lit up his glance, that trembled in his voice and in his touch She had proved to him, surely, what kind of girl she was. He must mean the right thing at last, or he would not so whole-heartedly declare himself.
And she had just rendered him a signal service, which (though he could not yet know it), gave her a delightful sense of meeting him on his own level. She was, moreover, in a vastly different position now from that of the mere working milliner. She had resources at her command; a future before her.
And there he was, the dear fellow, and he loved her still! Could a Sunday morning in June hold a more golden bliss?