“I arrived at your hotel just after you had gone,” Geoffrey explained. “So Herbert sent me on to meet you. I was in church, quite near you, all the time; but you looked so absorbed that I didn’t like to bring you down from heaven to earth until it was absolutely necessary. Celia, has Lady Marjorie said anything to you about me lately?”
“She told me that somebody I knew was staying at Cliff Terrace and intended coming to see me; but she did not say it was you. I was expecting the somebody all day.”
“Were you? Oh, if I had only known that you were here, I would have come round early this morning. Lady Marjorie has been very good to me; she has made me see what a timid ass I’ve been. It was not entirely my fault, though. Stannard would have it that you were engaged to Lord Bexley; and I was so busy looking after my poor aunt and Miss Thornton that——”
“Miss Thornton!” interpolated the girl, suddenly shrinking away from him. “I had forgotten Miss Thornton.”
Her sky was overcast again.
“You don’t know her, do you?” asked Geoffrey, wonderingly. “She is Stannard’s fiancée.”
Celia drew a deep sigh. Stannard’s fiancée! That made all the difference. But how foolish she had been to have made such a mistake!
“She used to be subject to fits,” her lover went on to explain. “But fortunately I have been able to effect a complete cure. She has been under my supervision for some months.”
“And she is going to marry Dick Stannard?” Celia asked, anxious to hear a corroboration of the statement.
“Yes, she is going to marry Dick,” he replied with satisfaction. “But I don’t want to speak about Miss Thornton just now. Oh, you dear, sweet girl, how nice it is to be talking to you like this after such a long time!” This with an affecting pressure of her hand. “You do love me just a wee bit, don’t you, dear?”