"You make me very glad to hear you say that," he said in a low voice, bending down so that he almost whispered the words in her ears. "I have thought of you very often while I have been away, Miss Leslie, wondering, and hoping that you might be happy here at the villa, and longing to get back that I might see you again."
Margaret's heart beat fast.
She told herself that it was only the language of courtly kindness; warmer than an Englishman would use, but meaning no more than usual.
"What beautiful flowers!" she said, looking at a bunch of camellias before her.
He glanced at her dress, unadorned by a single article of jewelry, then crossing the conservatory, picked a snow-white blossom and brought it to her.
"Will you accept this?" he said.
"Oh, thank you!" said Margaret. "How lovely it is," and she held it in her hand.
"Will you wear it?" he asked, and his voice grew low and almost tremulous.
Margaret started and her face went white.
They were almost the very words Blair had spoken in the little garden at Leyton Court that never-to-be-forgotten night, and they brought back the past and her own position with a lurid distinctness.