On Monday he was to visit Madam Guiscardini, according to the appointment made in the gardens, though it seemed worse than useless to renew the pain and distress he had suffered that day.
His mother was passionately averse to his seeing the woman who had so fatally entrapped him.
“Nay, mother; it will be best to ascertain clearly how we are to spend our future lives,” Paul said. “We must come to a clear understanding some way.”
On reaching home, he found a letter from Frank Amberley, dated that morning, before his own had been written, asking if it would be convenient for him to attend on Tuesday a meeting of the partners of the firm, to go more fully into the details of business having reference to Miss Turquand’s affairs.
Paul Desfrayne saw it would not be so easy to shrink from his duties as sole trustee and executor to the beautiful Lois as he had hoped it might be.
As he drifted into a broken, uneasy slumber that night, his last thoughts turned upon Lois, sincerely trusting it might not be necessary for the young girl to attend the meeting.
Why should he have this fear—this undercurrent of aversion to encountering his beautiful charge?
He had seen her only twice. He persuaded himself she was cold and beautiful as an antique statue. He argued to himself that a world-worn, half-weary man of thirty could scarcely be acceptable to a young girl of eighteen. He chose to feel certain that being dictated to in her choice must of itself suffice to render him unwelcome.
And yet he shrank with vague terror at the chance of being again exposed to the danger of being obliged to look into those soft, crystal-bright eyes, of glancing even for a moment into those untroubled depths, where lay mirrored the most perfect purity, loyalty, and truth.