“Well, you know you feel horribly lonely without that good fellow. I never saw anything more plucky in my life than the way you subdued your feelings and let him go away without a murmur, but you need not mind me—I am the soul of frankness—the essence of openness. I always say what I think and show what I feel. You can copy me. It strikes me, by the way, that you and I are going to be friends.”
“I hope so,” said Nancy.
“I know it, that is, if you will have me. I am a good friend, Mrs. Rowton, and a very nasty enemy. You may as well take me as a friend, will you?”
“You are Adrian’s friend, and you shall be mine,” said Nancy.
“That is right. Now, look here, child. I am not going to leave you to your own miserable feelings for the rest of the day. I know that good man you have married fifty times better than you do.”
“I can scarcely allow you to think that,” said Nancy.
“Oh! tut, tut, of course, I don’t mean the love-making side of him. He never would make love to anybody, although half the girls round the Heights had a try for it in the old days; but I know a side of him that you do not know. He is restless, he is essentially a rover—a gay rover, we all call him here. You must get accustomed to his vanishing in the peculiar way he has just vanished—he will come back as suddenly; without the least warning, any day or any hour the sunshine of his presence will once more light up the house. Now, come for a walk in the grounds—and, oh! by the way, pray invite me to dinner.”
Nancy could scarcely forbear from smiling.
“Will you stay?” she asked.