“So that I may act contrariwise, of course.”
“It is true... Isabel was right. Here you are already, back at our bacon! I am afraid, Captain Bedford, that you are very much absorbed in yourself.”
“Devoted to him! Of course. Why shouldn’t I be? Know him so well, don’t you know—understand his ways! Capital fellow, when you know him.—A woman asked me once whom I loved best in the world. I said: ‘Myself, of course.’ It was the bed-rock truth; it is the truth about most solitary people, if they would only admit it, but she was shocked.”
“I’m shocked, too. Even if it were true, I don’t think one should admit—”
“I don’t say it now. It would not be true. That was some time ago.”
Katrine’s thoughts flew back with instant recollection to the day before, to the quiet pocketing of the tortoise-shell trifle. She waited silently, holding her breath in the intensity of her anxiety, but no explanation was vouchsafed. She tossed her head with a restless gesture, and said tentatively:
“You—you are not in the least what I expected.”
“What precisely did you expect?”
“N-othing precisely, but everything different! I thought you’d be older for one thing, and would look more worn. Captain Blair said you were shy and silent.”
“Blair would say anything but his prayers. As a matter of fact I was paralysingly shy at dinner that night! Glad I concealed it so well. It was rather a formidable occasion meeting an—”