“But he seems to have known.”
“Strange,” he murmured. “Does he often stray away like that?”
“He does, sometimes,” she admitted reluctantly.
“Ah!” Audley was silent a moment. Then, “Well, I am glad he is better,” he said in the tone of one who dismisses a subject. “Let us talk of something else—ourselves. Are you aware that this is the fourth time that I have come to your rescue?”
“I know that it is the fourth time that you have been very useful,” she admitted. She wished that she had been able to control her color, but though he spoke playfully there was meaning in his voice.
“I, too, have a second sense it seems,” he said, almost purring as he looked at her. “Did you by any chance think of me, when you missed your uncle?”
“Not for a moment,” she retorted.
“Perhaps—you thought of Mr. Basset?”
“No, nor of Mr. Basset. Had he been at the Gatehouse I might have. But he is away.”
“Away, is he? Oh!” He looked at her with a whimsical smile. “Do you know that when he met us the other evening I thought that he was a little out of temper? It was not a continuance of that which took him away, I suppose?”