She started, with a faintly tremulous movement which thrilled him with triumphant gladness. Only at the tone or touch of one she secretly loves is a woman so moved.
"Mr. Durnford!" she exclaimed. "How did you recognise me?"
"How did you know me so quickly, in spite of my mask?"
"By your voice, of course."
"And I you by a hundred things: by every turn of your head; by every line of your figure; by the atmosphere that breathes around you; by the halo of light which to my eye hovers perpetually round your head; by a deep delight that steals over me when you are near. And you have been in London a week and I have not seen you, and yet I have passed your door twenty times a day. Cruel, never to discover me from your window, never to make an excuse for five minutes' civility: were it but to drop an old fan in the gutter and let me pick it up for you, or to send Sappho out of doors to be all but run over, so that I might rescue her from under a coach and six at peril of this paltry life of mine."
"Sappho is at Fairmile. My father would not let me bring her. He has promised me a pug. Why did you not pay us a visit of your own accord?"
"I was afraid. I have waited, sneak as I am, for Lavendale to take me with him."
"But why?" she asked, with divinest innocence.
"Lest the Squire should suspect me of being in love with you, and forbid me his door."
This suggestion overpowered her, and she was silent. Durnford too was silent, in a delicious pause of rapturous contentment, as he moved slowly through the crowd with his divinity on his arm.