“Yes, and I am just going back there. How clever of you to remember where we live! Will you take me to my boat? Let us walk round the garden first. It is charming to see you again.”
They strolled a few yards down the path between the two tall herbaceous borders, while she rapidly ran over in her mind what information she wanted from him. It was very quickly done.
“And you are staying here?” she asked. “How do you find Catherine? I am sure you walked together last night after dinner, and joined old memories onto the present.”
Lady Swindon was colossal in her impertinence. It struck Villars afresh after his long absence from England how very ill-bred a well-bred Englishwoman can be. But he was more than a match for her.
“Ah, my dear lady,” he said, “we found that the two needed no link. We neither of us have that faculty, which, no doubt, is often convenient, of forgetting old friends. As always, I adore her; as always, she receives my adoration from her infinite height. The Madonna still smiles on her worshipper. He asks no more.”
It was admirably done, for it told her nothing. She tried again.
“Indeed? I thought you had once asked more,” she said. “We all supposed so.”
“There is no limit to what people of brilliant and vivid imagination may not suppose,” said he.
She could not help smiling at her own defeat. His refusals to give direct answers were so very silken.
“And the truth always exceeds one’s imagination, does it not?” she said.