Babiole, who was still on the cushion at my feet, leaning against the arm of my chair as she used to do in the Highlands, was looking interested and deeply surprised.
'One thing in the way!' she echoed softly, looking into my face with earnest scrutiny. 'What—before I fell in love with—Fabian?'
'Yes, long before that.'
She hesitated, and her eyes slowly left my face, while her brows contracted with a puzzled expression.
'What was it?' she asked at last, in a whisper.
'I was in love with you.'
I could see very little of her face, but a shiver passed over her. For a moment I wondered, sitting quietly back in my chair, what she thought.
'Didn't you ever guess anything of it, child, when we had that odd sort of half-engagement?' I asked, in a most loyal tone of indifference.
She raised her head and looked at me modestly and solemnly.
'I should as soon have thought,' she said, in a low unsteady voice, 'that the Archbishop of Canterbury was—in love with me.'