To his pathetic stormy presence there succeeded Walter Blake, with all his accomplishment in the art of smooth love-making, with his aspirations again nicely adjusted to the object of his desires (he was so much cleverer than poor Alec over that!), with his power to flatter not only by love but still more by relative weakness. He, of course, did not run at the thing as Alec had done. That would be neither careful of the chances nor economical of the pleasure. Many a talk was needed before his purpose became certain or Anna could show any sign of understanding it.
He dealt warily with her; he was trying, unconsciously perhaps, to perform the task Caylesham had indicated to him—the task of learning her paces and adapting his thereto. It was part of his theory about her that she must be approached with great caution; and of course he knew that there was one very delicate bit of ground. How much had she heard about himself and Sibylla? It was long before he mentioned Sibylla's name. At last he ventured on throwing out a feeler. Anna's unruffled composure persuaded him that she knew nothing of the facts; but her shrewd analysis of Sibylla showed, in his judgment, that she quite understood the woman. It was the dusk of the afternoon again (Anna rather affected that time of day), and Blake, with a sigh which might be considered in the nature of a confession, ventured to say:
"I wish I could read people as you can. I should have avoided a lot of trouble."
"You can read yourself anyhow, can't you?" asked Anna.
"By Jove, that's good—that's very good! No, I don't know that I can. But I expect you can read me, Miss Selford. I shall have to come to you for lessons, shan't I?"
"I'll tell you all the hard bits," she laughed.
"You'll have to see a lot of me to do that!"
Anna was not quite so sure of the need, but she did not propose to stop the game.
"Do I seem so very reluctant to see a lot of you?" she inquired.
Blake's eyes caught hers through the semi-darkness. She was aware of the emotion with which he regarded her. It found an answer in her, an answer which for the moment upset both her coolness and her sense of mastery. She had a revelation that her dominion, not seriously threatened, yet would be pleasantly chequered by intervals of an instinctive submission. This feeling almost smothered the element of contempt which had hitherto mingled in her liking for him and impaired the pride of her conquest.