‘Your uncle has just told me. He has asked me to keep you company.’
‘Are you intending to?’ said Paula, probing the base-moulding of a pier with her parasol.
‘I have nothing better to do, nor indeed half so good,’ said De Stancy. ‘I am abroad for my health, you know, and what’s like the Rhine and its neighbourhood in early summer, before the crowd comes? It is delightful to wander about there, or anywhere, like a child, influenced by no fixed motive more than that of keeping near some friend, or friends, including the one we most admire in the world.’
‘That sounds perilously like love-making.’
‘’Tis love indeed.’
‘Well, love is natural to men, I suppose,’ rejoined the young lady. ‘But you must love within bounds; or you will be enervated, and cease to be useful as a heavy arm of the service.’
‘My dear Miss Power, your didactic and respectable rules won’t do for me. If you expect straws to stop currents, you are sadly mistaken! But no—let matters be: I am a happy contented mortal at present, say what you will.... You don’t ask why? Perhaps you know. It is because all I care for in the world is near me, and that I shall never be more than a hundred yards from her as long as the present arrangement continues.’
‘We are in a cathedral, remember, Captain De Stancy, and should not keep up a secular conversation.’
‘If I had never said worse in a cathedral than what I have said here, I should be content to meet my eternal judge without absolution. Your uncle asked me this morning how I liked you.’
‘Well, there was no harm in that.’