She did not turn in speaking; but the softness of her voice soothed his chafed spirit like a benediction, and robbed him for the moment of all power to reply.
"I was really trying to stamp it all on my memory," she went on after a pause. "It is a sight one doesn't see twice in a lifetime. Just for a few seconds it was terrible. But I would not have missed it for the world."
"Nor I. Now that I am here, I feel grateful to the Desmonds for persuading me to come."
"Did they have to drag you here by main force?"
"Not quite! I thought I had better stay and grind at my book; that was all. But they wouldn't hear of it."
"Do you always obey their orders implicitly?" There was veiled scorn in her tone, and a new warmth in his as he replied:
"I would do any mortal thing they asked me to, within reason. In all my life no two people have been so good to me."
"You evidently admire her very much." The stress on the pronoun was too delicate to catch his notice.
"I do, immensely. How could any man in his senses do otherwise? Or, for that matter, any woman either? I hoped—I thought—you would have been good friends with her."
He spoke his honest enthusiasm in the simple desire that she should share it. But her nerves were still strung to concert pitch, and he had struck the wrong note.