“Never saw me try to come down-stairs!”
“Never, yet.”
Had he been here that time she sprained her ankle? “Do you imagine I’m lame?”
“On the contrary, I’m ready to believe you have wings. Please fly down.”
“What a very odd person you are! I can’t think how I came to forget—”
He made no answer. Just stood there leaning against the heavy table, half-smiling and never turning away his eyes.
She caught up her glove and ran down several steps, but just before she reached the open place where the stair turned abruptly, and the solid wall gave way to a procession of slender pillars, she stopped, overcome by a sudden rush of shyness. Behind that last yard of sheltering wall she waited breathless, while you might count seven, and then turned on a noiseless foot and fled up-stairs, bending low as she passed the square windows, so that not even the top of her brown head should be visible to that very odd man waiting for her down there in the hall.
She reappeared ten minutes later with the first batch of guests, and while they were speaking to their hostess, the sunburnt man made his way to Bella, and held out his hand.
“It took you a long time,” he said. “How did you manage it?”
“Manage what?”