‘It is a mistake,’ repeated Paula calmly. ‘I meant the other one of the two we were talking about.’
‘What, Captain De Stancy?’
‘Yes.’
Knowing this to be a fiction, Mrs. Goodman made no remark, and hearing a slight noise behind, turned her head. Seeing her aunt’s action, Paula also looked round. The door had been left ajar, and De Stancy was standing in the room. The last words of Mrs. Goodman, and Paula’s reply, must have been quite audible to him.
They looked at each other much as if they had unexpectedly met at the altar; but after a momentary start Paula did not flinch from the position into which hurt pride had betrayed her. De Stancy bowed gracefully, and she merely walked to the furthest window, whither he followed her.
‘I am eternally grateful to you for avowing that I have won favour in your sight at last,’ he whispered.
She acknowledged the remark with a somewhat reserved bearing. ‘Really I don’t deserve your gratitude,’ she said. ‘I did not know you were there.’
‘I know you did not—that’s why the avowal is so sweet to me. Can I take you at your word?’
‘Yes, I suppose.’
‘Then your preference is the greatest honour that has ever fallen to my lot. It is enough: you accept me?’