Challoner gave her a sharp glance and then said, "I'm sorry. Mrs. Foster mentioned something about your not walking much; I should have remembered."
"It's the weather; I find the damp troublesome. If you don't mind, I think we'll go down."
Challoner gave her his arm, and Millicent, standing in the picture gallery, noticed their return. She suspected that this was the result of some manoeuvre of Mrs. Keith's intended for her advantage, and tried to summon her resolution. The man she loved would sail next day, believing that his poverty and the stain he had not earned must stand between them, unless she could force herself to give him a hint to the contrary. This was the only sensible course, but she timidly shrank from it.
Blake unlocked a glass case and taking out two shelves laid them on a table. "There they are," he said with a rather nervous smile. "I've no doubt the things are interesting, and if our friends come up they can look at them. But it wasn't Benares brassware that brought me here."
"Was it not?" Millicent asked with a fluttering heart.
"Certainly not! One couldn't talk with Foster enlarging upon the only rational way of rearing pheasants, and you know I'm going away first thing to-morrow."
"Yes; I know," said Millicent, and then looked up at him with sudden courage. "I'm sorry."
"Truly sorry; you mean that?" He gave her a very keen glance while he knitted his brows.
"Yes," she said recklessly; "I mean it. You ought to know I do."
He laid his hand on her shoulder, holding her a little away from him. "I came up here in a state of horrible indecision, torn different ways by a sense of the duty I owed you and my selfish longing. Even if nothing had been said to make it harder for me, I can't tell how the struggle would have ended."