"I haven't any business to ask, I suppose. But since we're to be pals, you won't mind. You know I'm not asking from impertinent curiosity, but from very keen interest in anything that belongs to you." His voice had become very serious.
"Tell me whether there's anybody very special, that you take a—a great interest in, won't you?"
"No, there isn't," said Lily in a low voice. She did not feel humiliated by the unromantic admission, because she was acutely aware that it would somehow intensely gratify her listener.
She heard him exhale a long breath.
"Do you know that's a relief to me! I was somehow certain you were going to say that there was some young spark—and somehow I didn't want there to be."
He burst out laughing.
"There's no fool like an old fool, is there? I want my new-found little pal to myself, you know. I don't want to share her thoughts with some young blood at Oxford or God knows where——"
He went on laughing, in catches, long after Lily felt that her own faint smile had died upon her lips.
X