“Oh.”
Another turn. This time towards the pergola.
“Another thing,” he went on—and this time I really did think I knew what was coming next. “About last night.”
I didn’t say, “Oh”—I simply waited for whatever apology he thought fit to make.
“Last night, in the drawing-room before dinner. I’m afraid I was rather rude.”
“Before dinner?” I echoed, forgetting what could have happened then.
“Yes; when you were asking me about that place in Wales, Porth Cariad,” he said. “I told you, rather off-handedly, I’m afraid, that there was ‘a wooden woman’ there.”
“Oh, yes!”
“Well, there is. It’s the figure-head of a ship, some vessel that was wrecked in the bay, years ago,” explained the Governor quite simply. “They’ve put it up beyond the two cottages there, on the cliff. I ought to have explained that at the time.”
Well! And wasn’t there anything else he had to explain? With all these “Oh’s” and pauses, he was a long, long time in coming to that unjustifiable kiss—and yet something convinced me that his mind was full of it even while he mentioned these other things first.