John blushed again, and, finding that she continued to look upon him smilingly and very kindly, took courage, and said gently—
“’Twas folly in me to appear surprised, madam, for I believe that angels do sometimes descend from the clouds.”
“Vastly well, sir,” said she. “Pray where did you learn to pay compliments? I had thought they were not easily come by in the country.”
“Nay, madam,” sighed poor John, ruefully. “I fear I should prove a poor scholar were I to attempt to learn the art of flattery. In saying that you appear to me to be an angel I did but speak the truth.”
Lady Lucy stopped laughing, and hung down her head in a manner quite inexplicable to John Cotley.
“An angel!” she said. “Ah, sir, what do you know of me.”
“Only what my eyes have shown me, madam,” said John, and then emboldened by a certain timid protest in her downcast face, he added warmly, “only what my heart has told me.”
And in some unaccountable fashion John Cotley’s tongue was loosed, and he found himself telling Lady Lucy all manner of strange things. About his loneliness, and of how during his somewhat melancholy life he had never hitherto met with a woman whom he could love; of how at first sight of her he had fallen a victim to one of those sudden passions of which he had sometimes heard, but in which he had never hitherto believed; of how absolutely hopeless he knew it to be, what misery, and yet what joy. His face glowed as he spoke, and his eyes were bright with a kind of fierce triumph: she should hear, she should know—at least she should know.
Her colour came and went as she listened; now her eyes were drawn to John’s, as though fascinated, now they sought the ground; once or twice she caught her breath with a little gasp.
“But a few moments ago,” said John, “I was telling myself that I wished I had never seen you; and now, though I may never see you again, I thank Heaven that this hour at least is mine. One hour, madam, out of a lifetime; it is not much, but at least it is something to look back on.”