‘It’s Wilfrid!’ exclaimed Clara, in the tone of one talking in her sleep. Then she laid down her knife, and laughed aloud.
‘What a guy you are!’ she exclaimed. ‘Who would have thought of finding you in a Swiss girl? Really it was too bad of you to sit there and let us go on as we did. I do believe we were talking about your precious self! At least papa was.’
Again her merry laugh rang out. She could not have taken a better way of relieving us.
‘I’m very sorry,’ I said; ‘but I felt so awkward in this costume that I couldn’t bring myself to speak before. I tried very hard.’
‘Poor boy!’ she returned, rather more mockingly than I liked, her violets swimming in the dews of laughter.
By this time Mr Coningham had apparently recovered his self-possession. I say apparently, for I doubt if he had ever lost it. He had only, I think, been running over their talk in his mind to see if he had said anything unpleasant, and now, re-assured, I think, he stretched his hand across the table.
‘At all events, Mr Cumbermede,’ he said, ‘we owe you an apology. I am sure we can’t have said anything we should mind you hearing; but—’
‘Oh!’ I interrupted, ‘you have told me nothing I did not know already, except that Mrs Wilson was a relation, of which I was quite ignorant.’
‘It is true enough, though.’
‘What relation is she, then?’