"We hardly expected you, George," she said.
His father had been right. She was looking well, very well. Her figure was perhaps not quite so full, nor the colour in her cheek quite so high as when he had first seen her in Jerusalem; but, otherwise, she had never seemed to him more lovely. The little effort she had made to collect herself, to assume a certain majesty in her gait, was becoming to her. So also was her plain morning dress, and the simple braid in which her hair was collected. It might certainly be boasted of Miss Waddington that she was a beauty of the morning rather than of the night; that her complexion was fitted for the sun rather than for gaslight.
He was going to give up all this! And why? That which he saw before him, that which he had so often brought himself to believe, that which at this moment he actually did believe to be as perfect a form of feminine beauty as might be found by any search in England, was as yet his own. And he might keep it as his own. He knew, or thought he knew enough of her to be sure that, let her feelings be what they might, she would not condescend to break her word to him. Doubtless, she would marry him; and that in but a few months hence if only he would marry her! Beautiful as she was, much as she was his own, much as he still loved her, he had come there to reject her! All this flashed through his mind in a moment. He lost no time in idle thoughts.
"Caroline," he said, stretching out his hand to her—usually when he met her after any absence he had used his hand to draw her nearer to him with more warmth than his present ordinary greeting showed—"Caroline, I have come down to have some talk with you. There is that between us which should be settled."
"Well, what is it?" she said, with the slightest possible smile.
"I will not, if I can help it, say any word to show that I am angry—"
"But are you angry, George? If so, had you not better show it? Concealment will never sit well on you."
"I hope not; nor will I conceal anything willingly. It is because I so greatly dislike concealment that I am here."
"You could not conceal anything if you tried, George. It is useless for you to say that you will not show that you are angry. You are angry, and you do show it. What is it? I hope my present sin is not a very grievous one. By your banishing poor aunt out of the drawing-room, I fear it must be rather bad."
"I was dining with Mr. Harcourt last night, and it escaped him in conversation that you had shown to him the letter which I wrote to you from Paris. Was it so, Caroline? Did you show him that very letter?"