“Well?” Pelham looked up, and in his own eyes there was something of challenge.
“I mean—well—you see—I hardly know how to say it, but I believe Polly is really interested in you.”
“I have amused her because I am a rank outsider, something entirely different from what she has been accustomed to.” And he helped himself to chicken salad.
Gita was torn between what might be a betrayal of Polly and the desire to come to her assistance. She had heard that men sometimes needed but a seed deftly planted to be flattered into complete surrender. And Pelham was not the type to feel only the joy of the hunter. Affection for Polly conquered.
“I believe she is really in love with you,” she said.
He turned pale but looked at her steadily. “If I thought that were true I should refuse to discuss the subject at all. But it is not. . . . Am I to understand that you have turned matchmaker?”
“Not I. But I’d like to see Polly happy.”
“Do you mean that you want me to marry her?” His voice had a harsh directness, quite unlike the mellow subtle tones of Eustace Bylant.
To her surprise Gita felt her face flush, and she dropped her eyes.
“Yes—I think I do.” But she frowned, not at him but herself.