Laline stopped short in her walk and looked at him intently. It was past five o'clock, but the sky was lighter since the snowfall and she could see his face clearly, the broad forehead and straight nose, the square outline, firm jaw, and handsome mouth softened now into tenderness, the clear olive skin and crisply curling black hair. Every feature seemed refined and idealised from what she remembered of the man a few years before, at which time his mouth was hidden under a heavy moustache and his brow darkened by loosely-falling hair. Only the eyes were the same in shape and colour, a clear blue, under the unusual setting of jet-black lashes and eyebrows; but in Wallace Armstrong's eyes, as they now met those of Laline's, a soft light was shining, making them unlike any she had ever yet beheld. And, as she gazed, this proud and self-reliant maiden, who so much wished to convince herself that she could never forgive this man, experienced the most unaccountable desire to creep into his arms under the protecting umbrella and whisper in his ear that she was not in the least angry with him and was really his wife all the time.
This sudden impulse Laline strongly combated. What right had this man, who knew himself to be married, to go about making love to unsuspecting girls? she asked herself, steeling her heart against him and reminding herself that to Clare also he had in all probability made similar overtures.
"I will try to forget all the absurd things you have said, Mr. Armstrong," she was beginning very gravely, when again he interrupted her.
"That is just what I don't want you to do! I want you, on the contrary, to remember every word, and to think of me when you get home, and try to get used to the idea of me. Then when you come to tea next week at my uncle's house——"
"I cannot come, as I told you, Mr. Armstrong. Dependants are not in the habit of making social calls with their employers."
"If you so greatly resent being in a position of what you call dependance, surely you will not be unwilling to change it?" he suggested.
They were close to the gates at the corner of the Gardens now, and Laline held out her hand.
"Good-bye!" she said. "I prefer to walk to the Crescent alone."
"Good-bye!" he said, and held her hand close in his. "But I can't quite let you go like this," he added, deprecatingly, still retaining her hand. "You haven't even told me whether you mean to leave off disliking me."