The air was electric between them. Each knew that the other was striving to cloak emotions that threatened at any moment to throw off the last vestige of concealment.
“My father is a very clever man, Mr. Fitzroy,” she said slowly. “If he did not choose to tell you why he did a thing, you could no more extract the information from him than from a bit of marble.”
“He has one weak point, I am sure,” and Medenham smiled confidently into her eyes.
“I do not know it,” she murmured.
“But I know it, though I have never seen him. He is vulnerable through his daughter.”
Her cheeks flamed into scarlet, and her lips trembled, but she strove valiantly to govern her voice.
“You must be very careful in anything you say about me,” she said with a praiseworthy attempt at light raillery.
“I shall be careful with the care of a man who has discovered some rare jewel, and fears lest each shadow should conceal an enemy till he has reached a place of utmost security.”
She sighed, and her glance wandered away into the sun-drowned valley.
“Such fortresses are rare and hard to find,” she said. “Take my own case. I was really enjoying this pleasant tour of ours, yet it is broken in two, as it were, by some force beyond our control, and the severance makes itself felt here, in this secluded nook, a retreat not even marked on our self-drawn map. Where could one be more secure—as you put it—less open to that surge of events that drives resistlessly into new seas? I am something of a fatalist, Mr. Fitzroy, though the phrase sounds strange on my lips. Yet I feel that after to-morrow we shall not meet again so soon or so easily as you imagine, and—if I may venture to advise one much more experienced than myself—the way that leads least hopefully to my speedy introduction to your aunt is that you should see my father, before I rejoin him. You know, I am sure, that I look on you rather as a friend than a mere—a mere——”