“There’s nothing more to do, I am afraid,” he said, rather wistfully.
Olivia smiled. “Afraid!” she echoed. “Why I should think you would be very glad to shake off the dust and the damp of this old place, and to get back to that beautiful, cosy room where I found you this evening.”
As she spoke, an uncomfortable remembrance of the mystery which hung about the house and its rumored connection with him came into her mind. Mr. Brander looked straight into her face, and said—
“Under some circumstances I might be. For I knew this place very well before it was left to dust and damp. But now I am glad to think that it is going to have life and youth and brightness in it again—very glad; and I don’t want to hurry away at all.”
He spoke so gravely, and expressed his reluctance to go so naively, that Olivia was silent, not quite knowing in what tone to answer him. Then it suddenly struck him that he might have offended her, and without looking into her face again he hastened to say—
“You must excuse my boorishness if I don’t express myself in the orthodox way. I live like a hermit, and have done for the last”—he paused, and then added slowly, as if counting up the time—“ten years. I have forgotten how to make pretty phrases. What I meant was this: I haven’t had half an hour’s pleasant talk with a lady, as I have with you this evening, for all that time—ten years! And it will very likely be ten years before I have another. And so I have enjoyed myself, and I am sorry it’s over, though I daresay you are rather tired of the rustic parson and his solecisms.”
An awkward constraint had fallen upon him; he had grown shy and unhappy. Olivia felt sorry for him, and she answered in tones of sweet feminine gentleness which seemed to pour balm upon some hidden wound.
“I believe part of what you say. For if you had been used to ladies’ society you must have known that talking to you has given me at least as much pleasure as talking to me can have given you. And if you are not going to have another talk with me for another ten years, as you threaten, it will be your fault, and not mine.”
There was a pretty graciousness in her manner, the result of the homage her beauty had always obtained for her. Mr. Brander gave her a shy glance of adoring gratitude which momentarily lit up his dark face.
“Thank you,” he said in a low voice. “I shall remember your pretty words and your kind looks, believe me; but when we next meet, it will not be the same, and it will be no fault of yours.”