“Well,” she said with a curious little sparkle in her eyes, “there was another night I met you when I wasn’t got up like this, and you were dressed in rags. Still, I knew that I could trust you. Do you believe that I should have been here, with everything that a woman could wish for, now, if I had not had that confidence?”
Appleby turned his eyes away, for certain fancies which had once or twice troubled him became certainties, and he recognized that the regard the girl had for him alone warranted the almost daring speech.
“I really don’t remember very much about the night in question,” he said. “Nobody in my place could. I was wounded slightly and almost dazed, you see.”
Nettie smiled curiously. “That is, of course, just what one would have expected from you.”
Appleby showed a faint trace of embarrassment. “I have been waiting most of the night to ask you a question,” he said. “What did you say to Tony Palliser and Miss Wayne about me in England?”
“You will never find out—unless she tells you.”
“That is most unlikely.”
Nettie smiled in a curious fashion, and then looked him in the eyes.
“Well,” she said reflectively, “I don’t quite know. You have already got more than you ever expected, Mr. Appleby. Anyway, it is getting late, and you will excuse me now.”
She moved away, and then, turning, stood smiling at him a moment by the door.