"Well," I said, "it strikes me that you're in luck to be here with such a companion as Miss Fielding. And she's as fortunate, too. I'm sure you get on beautifully. Still, how she can stand it, away off from every one, I don't see quite so well."
"Do you think she's—unhappy!" Leah asked after a pause.
"Certainly not to-day, at least. Yesterday I shouldn't have been quite so sure that she wasn't."
"Oh, she has her moods," Leah admitted. "I do my best to indulge them." She looked up at me. "So must you, too, Mr. Castle!" She held my eyes deliberately, as if expecting my promise.
"How could I be so ungrateful as not to, in the circumstances?"
"I mean—you see, she doesn't like to be questioned. I have to be very careful. She has her fancies, and often seems inconsistent, even a bit eccentric. It may be her life here alone. You know she sees so few people. You won't notice it?" Still her eyes appealed to me.
"I shan't at least show that I do."
She seemed dissatisfied.
"Except, perhaps, to you," I added, trying, as I had tried with Miss Fielding, to get to the bottom of her dread.
"Oh, not to me," she begged. "She's too fine for us to be discussing. I've said too much already, I'm afraid. I don't know why I did. Only——"