He looked injured.
'I never am!'
Nelly laughed.
'You don't know when you are. And be very nice to her this afternoon.'
'How can I, if she shews me at once that I'm unwelcome? You haven't answered my question.'
He was standing ready for departure. Nelly's face changed—became all sad and tender pity.
'You must ask it yourself!' she said eagerly, 'Go on asking it. It would be too—too dreadful, wouldn't it?—to miss everything—by being proud, or offended, for nothing——'
'What do you mean by everything?'
'You know,' she said, after a moment, shielding her eyes as they looked into the fire; 'I'm sure you know. It is everything.'
As he walked back to the cottage, he found himself speculating not so much about his own case as about his friend's. Willy was certainly in love. And Nelly Sarratt was as softly feminine as Cicely was mannish and strong. But he somehow did not feel that Willy's chances were any safer than his own.