His first impulse, as his senses became clearer, was to glance around for the woman who had called Adrea her step-daughter. She was gone. She must have stepped out of the room by the opposite doorway; and with the knowledge that they were alone, he breathed freer.
"Adrea!" he said, "it is really you, then!"
His words, necessarily commonplace, dissolved the situation. She laughed softly, and came further into the room.
"It is I," she said. "Did you think that I was an elf from spirit-land?"
He had never shaken hands with her,—it was a thing which had never occurred to either of them; but a sudden impulse came to him then. He took a hasty step forward, and clasped both her little white hands in his. So they stood for another minute in silence, and a strange, soft light flashed in her upturned eyes. She was very near to him, and there was an indefinable sense of yielding in her manner, amounting almost to a mute invitation. He felt that he had only to open his arms, and that strange, beautiful face, with its mocking, quivering mouth, would be very close to his. The old battle was forced upon him to fight all over again; and, alas! he was no stronger.
It was almost as though she had seen the hesitation—the conflict in him—for with a sudden, imperious gesture she withdrew her hands and turned away from him. There was a scarlet flush creeping through the deep olive of her cheeks, and her eyes were dry and brilliant. Paul, who had never studied women or their ways, looked at her, surprised and a little hurt.
"You are surprised to see me here, of course?" she said, sinking into a low easy-chair, and taking up a fire-screen of peacocks' feathers, as though to shield her face from the fire. "Well, it is quite an accident. I wrote you rather a silly letter the other day; but you must not think that I have followed you down here!"
"I did not think so," he answered hastily. "The idea never occurred, never could have occurred to me!"
She continued, without heeding his interruption: "I will explain how we came to take this cottage. A relative of mine came to me suddenly from abroad. She was in great trouble, and was in search of a very secluded dwelling-place, where she might live for a time unknown. I also was in bad health, and the doctor had ordered me complete rest and quiet. We went to a house agent, and told him what we wanted—to get as far away from every one as possible. We did not care how lonely the place was, or how far from London; the further the better. This house was to let, furnished, and at a low figure. I did not know that Vaux Abbey was in the same county even. It suited us, and we took it."
"I understand," Paul answered. "And now that you are here, are you not afraid of finding it dull?"