She was silent, her colour much heightened. After a short pause, he continued: “Do you mean to remain permanently in your present position?”
She started. “Oh, no! It would be impossible, for I have not the least claim on Lady Saltash! Already I feel that I have trespassed on her kindness for too long. I do not — I am not perfectly certain what I shall do, but you must know that I was trained to become a governess, and — and it was with the object of finding an eligible situation in some seminary that I came to Bath.”
“A governess! You!” he exclaimed. “You are not serious! You cannot mean me to believe that you wish for such an existence!”
A rather melancholy smile trembled on her lips. “Oh, no! I shall dislike it of all things! In fact, I once said that I would do anything rather than become one! But if I do find such a post perhaps it will not be so very bad after all.”
“Have you no relatives to provide for you?” he asked. “You are so young! Surely there must be someone — a guardian, perhaps — whose business it must be to take care of you?”
“No, there is no one — at least, I have a cousin who gave me a home when my father died, but she could not house me for ever, you see, and to tell you the truth I did not like her, nor she me.”
“I had not imagined that this could be so,” he said, in a moved tone. “I had thought — This alters things indeed!” He smiled, as she looked up inquiringly, and said: “No wonder you dream of romance and adventure! You should be called Cinderella, I think!”
Her mouth quivered. She replied: “It is odd that you should say so. I have sometimes thought that too. You do not know the whole, and I cannot tell it to you just now, though perhaps one day I may. I — I was very like Cinderella.”
“Except that no Prince has yet come with a glass slipper for you to try on your foot!” he said.
She was silent, her attention apparently fixed on the road ahead, her face still a little flushed. When she did speak, it was with a touch of constraint, and only to say that she fancied it must be time they were thinking of a return to Camden Place. He agreed at once, for he thought her embarrassment arose from maidenly shyness. He said gently: “Was it very dull and disagreeable in your cousin’s house, Cinderella?”