“And then, if you use my other name when we are alone, you may forget, and let it slip out when the others are here,” he objected, looking down on me from his perch on the fender-stool, “and—and it’s more than likely that my sisters might notice. Theodora notices everything.”
“Yes”—gently—“so I gather.”
“And always says out what she thinks,” her brother informed me. “That’s why—if you don’t mind—I am going to continue calling you ‘Nancy’ even when we are alone.”
“Oh, certainly,” I said softly. “And I suppose I must practise trying not to feel afraid of you.”
He looked sharply at me, but I know there was no expression in my face, and my eyes seemed fixed upon the hands in my lap, upon the ring I was turning, idly, round my engagement-finger.
“Afraid of me?” he took up. “You?”
“Oh, Mr. Waters—I beg your pardon, I didn’t mean to use that name again. I was going to say, you know that we are all terrified to death of you—at the office.”
I know he guessed that I meant “but this is not the office, and I’ve lost all the wholesome awe that I still had of you only yesterday, and I’m no more terrified of you than Cariad is, now!” Without looking directly at him, I saw his keen, blonde face flush a little under its tan—this City-fied young man is oddly sunburned—and his firmly-fitted lips moved as if he were going to say something but thought better of it. After a pause he opened them again and asked:
“Do you smoke—er—Nancy?”
“No, thanks very much,” I said primly.