“No.”
“You may think so, but you are, all the same, without knowing it.”
“I think you are talking nonsense,” said Phyl hurriedly, fighting against a deadly sort of paralysis of mind such as one may suppose comes upon the mind of a bird under the spell of a serpent.
“No one could be kinder than Miss Pinckney, and so no one could be happier than I am. I love Vernons.”
“All the same,” said Silas, “you are not really alive there. It’s the life of a cabbage, must be, there’s only you and Maria and—Pinckney. Maria is a decent old sort but she’s only a woman, and as for Pinckney—he doesn’t care for you.”
This statement suddenly brought Phyl to herself. It went through her like a knife. She had ceased to think of Richard Pinckney in any way but as a friend. At one time, during the first couple of days at Vernons, her heart had moved mysteriously towards him; the way he had connected himself through Prue’s message with the love story of Juliet had drawn her towards him, but that spell had snapped; she was conscious only of friendliness towards Richard Pinckney. Why, then, this sudden pain caused by Silas’s words?
“How do you know?” she flashed out. “What right have you to dare—” She stopped.
The blaze of her anger seemed to Silas evidence that she cared for Pinckney.
“You’re in love with him,” said he, flying out. The bald and brutal statement took Phyl’s breath from her. She turned on him, saw the anger in his face, and then—turned away.
His state of mind condoned his words. To a woman a blow received from the passion she has roused is a rude sort of compliment, unlike other compliments it is absolutely honest.