“No,” she said quietly. “I’ve got beyond that.” She lowered her gaze to the flowers in the centre of the table, contemplating their beauty with a kind of tired relief. Dare watched her intently.
“I feel,” she added after a pause, “rather as though I had become frozen. I don’t seem to care much what happens. You’ll go with me in the morning, I suppose?”
“Naturally,” he answered.
She raised her eyes again to his swiftly.
“After I have seen him once,” she said, “it won’t be so difficult. I’ll be able to release you then from your kind office. You mustn’t waste your time any longer on my account.”
“I don’t reckon it time wasted,” he returned.
“Not wasted,—no. I couldn’t have managed without you. But I feel it is very selfish of me to have accepted so much from you. You’ve set me in the path. I’ll be able to walk it now unaided.”
“We will talk of that,” he said easily, “after you have seen him. In the meantime I am not going to let you dwell on the matter. You are going to drive with me this afternoon. It’s beautiful country about here, and the roads are excellent. We’ll forget the painful purpose of this journey, Pamela, and enjoy ourselves. I claim that as my fee for the services you insist on recognising.”
“You are so good to me,” she said.
Her voice was low and tenderly tremulous, and her eyes, lifted to his, shone misty and soft and confiding. Dare gripped the table with both hands, and stared back at her across the flowers which divided them in their slender crystal vase. His face was tense.