“You may if you like,” she answered, almost under her breath.
“Do we meet now for the first time? or—have we known one another all our lives. It is for you to say?”
“Me to say,” she repeated, raising her eyes to where he stood, humbly awaiting her decision. “Why, to say the truth, and what else?—wasn’t I your mother’s egg-huxter?”
“Well, perhaps we need not recall that—only—other things?”—and he studied her pale, uplifted face, and her brilliant eyes, with a keen and intimate interest. “Do you know that I’ve always had a presentiment, that we should come across one another some day. Of course I have heard your story.”
“Yes,” she answered, with regal equanimity, “I believe it was on the papers.”
“I was not as much surprised as other people. You were always different to your surroundings.”
“I suppose I was,” she acquiesced. “I never had much heart for work.”
“But you had for play. You seem to have left your spirits in Ireland?”
As he spoke he took a seat and continued.
“It is six years since we met. A good deal of water has run under the bridge——”