“Please contradict anything you hear said about him and me,” she said.
“Yes, I promise I will. It was Vera put it into my head. She said she was quite sure Gervase was in love with you.”
“Well, please contradict it—it will be annoying for Gervase as well as for me.”
A sudden fear seized Peter—a new fear—much more unreasonable and selfish than the old one. It expressed itself with the same suddenness as it came, and before he could check himself he had said—
“Stella ... there isn’t ... there isn’t anyone else?”
He knew that moment that he had given himself away, and he could not find comfort in any thought of her not having noticed. For a few seconds she stared at him silently with her bright perplexed eyes. Then she said—
“No, there isn’t.... But, Peter, why shouldn’t there be?”
He murmured something silly and surly—he was annoyed with her for not tactfully turning the conversation and covering his blunder.
“I’m nearly twenty-eight,” she continued—“and if I can manage to fall in love, I shall marry.”
“Oh, don’t wait for that,” he said, still angry—“you can marry perfectly well without it. I have, and it’s been most successful.”