Nita answered nothing, but paced on beside him. Jerome was fully aware in his secret heart that his last speech was claptrap; but if it had the same effect upon Nita as if it had been fresh from the real well of pathos, what did it matter? There was a vague feeling present in his mind, that Nita seemed to take a good deal of interest in him—a feeling which gave him suddenly great interest in her.
‘You are very fond of the Abbey, then?’ he asked.
‘Yes—very.’
‘Why so? What makes you like it so much? Stop! I am sure you need not give orders to the gardener this very moment. Take one other turn with me on the river walk. Why are you so devoted to the Abbey?’
‘I can hardly tell,’ she answered, a little shyly. (Evidently she was dreadfully afraid of hurting him by any second remark like that one which had already, as it were, exploded like a conversational bombshell. To her he was still the lord of the soil, despite her love for the place, and her keen sense of joy in the possession of it. He saw the feeling in a moment, and it gratified him.) ‘I hardly know,’ repeated Nita; ‘it seems to have grown part of my life—it is so different from other places. It suits me. I was so glad when we came here.’
‘And you knew when you came that you were the only child of your father, and you liked the idea of sometime reigning at the old place?’ pursued Jerome, tranquilly.
‘Yes. Oh, do please excuse me. I did like it very much. But if I had known about you, I should not have liked it; and I shall not like it now.’
‘Known about me!—you mean that you were unaware of the existence of such a person?’
‘No; I had heard of you. But Aunt Margaret—is a little prejudiced, I think. She knows all the traditions of the place, and all the histories of all the old families in it, and she used to say that—that your father——’
‘What about my father, Miss Bolton?’