‘Ah! And what leads them to mistrust me?’
‘Your own actions,’ replied Estella.
And Conyngham was too simple-minded, too inexperienced in such matters, to understand the ring of anxiety in her voice.
‘I do not much mind what the rest of the world thinks of me,’ he said; ‘I have never owed anything to the world nor asked anything from it. They are welcome to think what they like. But with you it is different. Is it possible, señorita, to make you trust me?’
Estella did not answer at once. After a pause she gave an indifferent jerk of the head.
‘Perhaps,’ she said.
‘If it is possible, I will do it.’
‘It is quite easy,’ she answered, raising her head and looking out of the window with an air that seemed to indicate that her interests lay without and not in this room at all.
‘How can I do it?’
She gave a short, hard laugh, which to experienced ears would have betrayed her instantly.