A pang smote him. He felt the shock of reproach in her voice, knowing what she meant immediately, though he rallied to say, faint-heartedly:
"Why, I haven't learned how to open it yet."
"I'm afraid you'll never learn." She did not look at him.
"What do you mean?" he asked, summoning all his courage. "I thought you had given it to me."
She kept her eyes away from him. "If I did, I must ask it back, now."
Perturbed as he was by this new proof of her intuition, he refused to admit it. After all, it might have been merely her quick observation. At any rate, he would make another attempt to pit his cleverness against her sapience.
"Oh, we only went up to see Mr. Maxwell's books. He has a first edition of Montaigne there." He was for a moment sure that she was only jealous.
She bent her calm eyes upon him. There was no weakness in her mouth, though it seemed more lovely in its tremulous distress. The upper lip quivered uncontrolled; the lower one fell grieving, as she said:
"I asked nothing. I want only honesty in what you do tell me."
This time he was fairly amazed. The hit was deadly. He dared not suspect that she had taken a chance shot. He was too humbled to attempt any denial, knowing how useless it would be in the face of her discernment. Yet she had showed nothing more than disapproval or distress. Her reproof could scarcely be called an accusation, and her chivalry touched him.