Gerard looked at her steadily.
“May I say what I think, Miss Davison?” he asked, after a short pause.
“Not if it’s anything disagreeable,” she said quickly. “I’ve heard too many unpleasant speeches from you, Mr. Buckland, and for the future I command you to keep silence with me unless you have something to say which I shall be pleased to hear.”
She tried to speak flippantly, but there was an underlying seriousness, nay, distress, in her look and tone, which told him that she was no happier than she had been when he last met her.
“I’m going to say what I had in my mind, all the same,” he said, in a voice full of deep feeling. “It’s only this: I’m sorry to see you here, Miss Davison. It’s a change for the worse from Lady Jennings’ house, and I’m sure you must feel it so. Why did you quarrel with her?”
She was deadly pale, but she tried to hold her own and to carry matters with a high hand.
“Don’t you think,” she said, “that you’re rather indiscreet, Mr. Buckland, to presume to lecture me upon my actions? If I find that I am uncomfortable in the house of one friend, surely it is my own affair if I try another? And pray what fault have you to find with Mrs. Van Santen? Isn’t she a dear old lady, quite as kind in her way as Lady Jennings?”
Gerard frowned in perplexity.
“Oh, I suppose so,” said he. “Still, the whole atmosphere is different, the tone is lower; and what you gain in liveliness and gayety—and I suppose you do gain there—is, in my opinion, more than made up for by what you lose in refinement. There—I’ve offended you deeply, I know; but I don’t care. It had to be said; and I shall never be satisfied until I see you back again at the little house where you seemed to be at home.”
She turned upon him again, in the old way, ready with some haughty speech expressive of her annoyance at his presumption; but, as she did so, she met his eyes. And, just as it had happened before, it happened again; she caught her breath; she could not go on; and with her eyes full of sudden tears, and head which bent over the flowers as if to hide her face, she remained silent, while he stood also mute, excited, moved, longing wistfully to make her speak out and tell him the truth that was troubling her.