‘Three months ago,’ answered Estella, ‘we had never heard of you—and you had never seen me,’ she added, with a little laugh.
‘I have seen nothing else since,’ Conyngham replied deliberately; ‘for I have gone about the world a blind man.’
‘In three months one cannot decide matters that affect a whole lifetime,’ said the girl.
‘This matter decided itself in three minutes, so far as I am concerned, señorita, in the old palace at Ronda. It is a matter that time is powerless to affect one way or the other.’
‘With some people; but you are hasty and impetuous. My father said it of you—and he is never mistaken.’
‘Then you do not trust me, señorita?’
Estella had turned away her face so that he could only see her mantilla and the folds of her golden hair gleaming through the black lace. She shrugged her shoulders.
‘It is not due to yourself, nor to all who know you in Spain, if I do,’ she said.
‘All who know me?’
‘Yes,’ she continued; ‘Father Concha, Señora Barenna, my father, and others at Ronda.’