“I suppose it does.”
“Some hitch of the kind is detaining my uncle and Rupert.”
She cannot be more uncomfortably conscious that the explanation is superfluous and uncalled for, than is he that her trite reflections and unasked-for introduction of her financial affairs are the stairs by which she is climbing to some aimed-at goal. In her next sentence she attains it.
“Talking of marriages reminds me——” Even when the door to which she has been looking is reached, it seems hard to open.
“Yes?”
“I have been thinking that I owe you an apology.”
“For what?”
“For the spirit in which I received a very kind suggestion you made.”
“What suggestion?”
It is needless to say that he knows as well as she what was the contemned overture; yet—for Love is by no means a kindly god—he cannot deny himself the luxury of seeing her run up the red pennon of shame into her cheeks. But when he notes what uphill work it is to her to give the asked-for explanation, and how conscientiously she does it, his heart smites him with an acuteness that brings its own retribution.