"And you're not?" He came back to the fireplace; stood there, taking regard of every one of her features with no attempt to conceal the direction of his eyes. "And you're not, I suppose?" he repeated.
She smiled with an effort. "If I were, it 'ud scarcely be for me to say. But I don't think I am. I suppose I'm not ugly. When I'm in good spirits, I sometimes go so far as to think I'm not actually plain. But she's pretty—really pretty." Her eyes pointed in the direction of her last remark.
Traill leant forward, facing her, putting both hands on the arms of the chair in which she was sitting. "So are you," he said quietly, "really pretty."
She was locked in, his hands on the arms of her chair and his body making the bars, against which, even had she wished it, escape were impossible. She tried to take it with a little smile, the ordinary compliment in the ordinary way. But the note in his voice refused to harmonize with that. Her smile was forced, her expression unnatural. And there she was caged, locked in by his eyes and, like a bird in the first moments of its captivity, her heart beat wildly against her breast. It was not because she was afraid—the trust in her mind never failed her for an instant—but she knew that she was captive. Whoever the other woman might be, if his honour, his heart, his whole soul were plighted to her, yet Sally knew that she must love him. There was all the giving, all the yielding, all the passive abandonment in her eyes; and when he saw that, Traill shot upright, forcing his hands to anything they might do.
"That's my sister," he said hurriedly, breaking into conversation—the man pursued and seeking sanctuary. He could not trust himself to look closely at her again. The boiling of the milk was an action of refuge; he crushed the saucepan down on to the glowing coals. She had said he was a gentleman.
"Your sister?" Sally whispered. He did not turn; he did not see her lips twitching in the reaction of relief. He had known nothing of the whirlwind that had been sweeping through her mind. All that play he had lost and yet was no loser. Had he seen the jealous hunger in her heart, it would have pointed the rowels of the spur that was already drawing its blood.
"Yes; she lives down in Buckinghamshire. My father left her the place. She's married. That was done of her when she was twenty."
"Apsley Manor?"
"Yes," he twisted round. "How did you know the name of the place?"
"I saw it in Who's Who?"