‘But, Miss Leland, if it were not because I met your brother that—I came out here! If there were another reason!’
‘If there were another reason I confess my smile out of time and apologise for it.’ And therewith she shot him through and through with another smile. It was fatal to both, for he in falling caught her with him. These things have a habit of occurring all at once, and in anything rather than the meditated fashion.
‘Lilian,’ said the young Barndale, inwardly delirious at his own daring and the supernal beauty of her smile, but on the outside of him quite calm and assured, and a trifle masterful, ‘I came because I learned that you were com-ing. If you are displeased with me for that, I will land at Corfu and go home. And bury my misery,’ he added in a tone so hollow and sepulchral that you or I had laughed.
Miss Leland sat quite grave with downcast eyes.
‘Are you displeased?’
‘I have no right to be displeased,’ she murmured.
Of course you and I can see quite clearly that he might have kissed her there and then, and settled the business, murmuring ‘Mine own!’ But he was in love, which we are not, and chose to interpret that pretty murmur wrongly. So there fell upon the pair an awkward silence. He was the first to break it.
‘I will land at Corfu,’ he said, with intense penitence.
‘But not—not because of my displeasure,’ she answered; a little too gaily for the gaiety to be quite real.
‘Ah, then!’ he said, catching at this ark of perfect safety, which looked like a straw to his love-blinded eyes, ‘you are not displeased?’