As he turned and held this out to her, Camilla Lancing gave a little shiver. She looked at him without taking the envelope.
"Oh!" she murmured, "I ... am half afraid to take this! I came ... on ... on the impulse of the moment, not because you have so much ... but because I ... felt ... I feel you are so glad to—to help any one but...."
"Why should there be any 'but'?" he asked, not very steadily; "by this time I hope you know that I hold it one of my greatest pleasures, as it is certainly an honour, to serve you whenever you will permit me to do so. Will you remember this always?..."
Camilla bit her lip again, and then put out her hand.
Haverford bent over it and kissed it. Her hand was kissed at least once or twice a day on the average but Rupert Haverford had never before permitted himself this old-fashioned and gracious sign of homage. It was with him an expression of something far, far deeper than mere courtesy to a very delightful and very pretty woman. She divined this instantly, and her heart began to beat nervously. As he released her hand she pulled her sables about her and prepared to go. She wanted to be away from him. The expression of his face troubled her. She had chafed almost angrily at his silence, his self-repression, yet now that she knew he would speak she dreaded to hear his words.
A thousand jarring feelings thrilled her.
Though there had been many moments recently when he had appealed to her physically, when, indeed, she had frankly admired him, in this moment she felt almost as though she hated him.
It was a sensation which she could not define which she would have found practically impossible to explain to another person, but it was very real, very oppressive.
She crushed the envelope he had given her in her hand, and hid it in her big muff; then she began speaking gaily.
"What are you doing to-night?" she asked. "You are engaged? Oh, I am so sorry! I thought that perhaps you would have taken Agnes and me to dinner somewhere. We have no engagement; but never mind, we can do that another night."