"I do not blame you, Captain Butler," I said disdainfully.
"Then may we not resume an intercourse as entertaining as it was full of profit to myself?"
"Time heals—but Time must not be spurred too hard," I answered, watching him.
His stealthy eyes dropped as he inclined his head in acquiescence.
Then Sir Peter spoke, frankly, impetuously, his good heart dictating ever to his reason; and what he said was amiable and kind, standing there, his sweet lady's arm resting on his own. And she, too, spoke graciously but gravely, with a gentle admonition trailing at the end.
But when he turned to Elsin Grey, she softened nothing, and her gesture committed him to silence while she spoke: "End now what you have said so well, nor add one word to that delicate pyramid of eloquence which you have raised so high to your own honor, Captain Butler. I am slow-witted and must ask advice from that physician, Time, whom Mr. Renault, too, has called in council."
"Am I, then, banished?" he asked below his breath.
"Ask yourself, Mr. Butler. And if you find no reply, then I shall answer you."
All eyes were on her. What magic metamorphosis had made this woman from a child in a single night! Where had vanished that vague roundness of cheek and chin in this drawn beauty of maturity? that untroubled eye, that indecision of caprice, that charming restlessness, that childish confidence in others, accepting as a creed what grave lips uttered as a guidance to the lesser years that rested lightly on her?
And Walter Butler, too, had noted some of this, perplexed at the reserve, the calm self-confidence, the unimagined strength and cold composure which he had once swayed by his passion, as a fair and clean-stemmed sapling tosses in tempests that uproot maturer growth.