‘And yet——’
‘I have read anything I could find to read,’ interrupts she; ‘and at one time I went to a day-school, but that is all.’
‘I see,’ says Wyndham. His tone is indifferent, but, inwardly, curiosity is stirring him. So little education, and yet so calm, so refined a manner! Who is this girl, with her well-bred air, but with, too, the little touches here and there that betray the fact of her having lived not only out of the fashionable world, but very far from even the outskirts of it? What whim of fate has given her that shapely head, those shell-like ears and pointed fingers, yet given her into the clutches of the middle classes?
‘You would wish to enlarge your studies?’ asks he presently.
For the first time since she came towards him, in the garden outside, she now lets her eyes rest frankly upon his.
‘Oh, if I could!’ says she.
‘That is very easily to be managed, I should think. You have three hundred a year of your own, and can command advantages that hitherto, I imagine, from what you say, have been withheld from you.’ He waits a moment, as if expecting her to speak, to make some comment on his words, but she remains mute.
‘If you could tell me something of yourself—your history—what brought you to this,’ says Wyndham, ‘it might make matters simpler for both you and me.’
The girl shrinks backwards as though he had struck her.
‘No, no!’ cries she quickly.