“I think she is pretty—your friend—in the pale English way.”
“I think so too.”
I smiled secretively and grimly, as, my head bent down, I busied myself over the linen. A long pause followed—and then:—
“May I shut the door, Felix?”
“No,” I answered sharply; then, more reasonably: “Think of the misconception it might give rise to if you were seen leaving—there, I know what the fiction is; but fiction must be safeguarded against truth as much as truth against fiction; and ours has been used before now and found not impregnable. You can talk where you are: there is no danger of any one hearing you on this remote landing.”
I thought she would go at once; but to my surprise she did not move.
“What is it you want?” I asked presently, turning to face her, as she did not speak. The look of her, standing so, half disarmed me. She was so patently miserable, with still the proud misery of one who, wishing to atone, struggles against the self-abasement whose first knowledge may be of a place in old affections lost, perhaps irretrievably. Yet I could not keep that harshness from my voice, though I knew she felt it acutely. I had a policy to pursue, no less than a lesson to drive home; and certainly she had given me plentiful provocation for my attitude.
“Nothing,” she said—“only to say good-night.” She moved as if to go; but still lingered; and suddenly the submission came. “I didn’t mean you to be so offended; and—and I suppose it was natural in you to prefer your own countrywoman before a stranger.”
“My dear child,” I answered coolly, “I must point out to you two errors in that little speech: I did not regard you as a stranger, and I was not offended.”
A momentary light of hopefulness came into the eyes turned quickly up to me, but it faded on the instant.