She put out her hand and touched his arm with the timid touch, the suggestion of a caress, which women can convey so significantly.
Drake glanced toward the open window apprehensively. Nell—any one—might come out any moment, and——
"Shall we walk to the end of the terrace?" he said. "You will catch cold——"
As he spoke he looked down at her. There was only a man's inquiry, and consideration for a woman's bare shoulders, in the look; but to Nell, whose eyes were fixed upon him with an agonized intentness, it seemed that the look was eloquent of tenderness and passion.
"Yes, yes," assented Lady Luce quickly. "Some one may come, and—and—we have so much to say, haven't we, Drake?"
He drew her arm within his mechanically, as he would have drawn it if he had been leading her to a dance, or in to dinner, and they moved beyond Nell's hearing.
Drake bit his lip, and glanced sideways toward the house. What could she have to say to him? and what did this sudden tenderness, this humility, of hers mean?
Suddenly it occurred to him that she had seen his uncle, and heard of the old man's offer. Ten thousand a year was not a large income for one in Lady Lucille Turfleigh's position; but—well, she might have been tempted by it. His face hardened with an expression of cold cynicism which Nell had never seen.
"What have we to say, Luce?" he asked. "I thought you and I had exhausted all topics of absorbing interest when we parted the other day."
She winced, and looked up at him reproachfully.