‘When next I enter Spain, Mr. Arbuthnot, it shall be with dignity. When I meet my mother’s people I hope to be armed with degrees, certificates—whatever the English universities will confer on me.’
‘Don’t go until your name has been bracketed high on the list of wranglers.’
As Geoffrey made this venture on thin ice he watched his pupil narrowly. One of the storm-flashes that lit Marjorie Bartrand’s face into such frequent, such perilous beauty, was his reward.
‘You mean—never go at all! Do you feel a pleasure, Mr. Arbuthnot, in throwing cold water over my dearest hopes and ambitions?’
‘An enormous pleasure, Miss Bartrand. I have felt it from that first evening when you were good enough to hire me as your teacher at Tintajeux.’
The girl looked away from him, her colour changing.
‘That evening, when I had to receive you in state, to make formal speeches and curtsies, all my great-aunts and uncles looking on through their Bartrand eyelids! Do you remember our Bon Espoir? He was an omen of better temper, perhaps, than has prevailed between us since. Were you taken aback? Was I quite unlike what you expected?’
She asked these momentous questions with the keen curiosity characteristic of the passion in its earlier days. But all the time she shrank from encountering Geff Arbuthnot’s glance.
‘You really desire to know?’
‘Yes.’