“I'm not a child.”
“No, we've both grown older. I was forty-seven the other day.”
She caught his hand—Heavens! how supple she was!—and murmured:
“You're not old a bit; you're quite young.” At his wits' end, with his heart thumping, but still keeping his eyes away from her, he said:
“Where is Oliver?”
She dropped his hand at that.
“Oliver? I hate him!”
Afraid to trust himself near her, he had begun walking up and down. And she stood, following him with her gaze—the firelight playing on her red frock. What extraordinary stillness! What power she had developed in these few months! Had he let her see that he felt that power? And had all this come of one little moment in a dark corridor, of one flower pressed into his hand? Why had he not spoken to her roughly then—told her she was a romantic little fool? God knew what thoughts she had been feeding on! But who could have supposed—who dreamed—? And again he fixed his mind resolutely on that thought: She's a child—only a child!
“Come!” he said: “tell me all about your time in Ireland?”
“Oh! it was just dull—it's all been dull away from you.”