“And what has brought you?” asked Christian, settling herself with the luxurious deliberation of a cat into the large chair from which she had risen. “Something good, certainly.”
“The simple desire to see you, ma’am. Could anything be better?”
It was an excellent opening; but he had never, even in his youth, been a man who ran full tilt upon anything. He had scarcely ever before made so direct a speech.
She smiled, amused. There had been plenty of time for thought in her solitude; but, though she had thought a good deal about him, she had not a suspicion of his errand. She saw people purely in relation to the uses she had for them, and, officially, she had pronounced him harmless to the party in whose interests she had kept him at her side. The circumstances were not those which further sentiment.
“I have spent this quiet time in remembering your kindnesses to me,” he began, inspired by her smile.
“You call it a quiet time?” she interrupted. “I had not looked on it in that way. Quiet for us, perhaps, but not for the country.”
“True, true,” said he, in the far-away tone in which some people seek to let unprofitable subjects melt.
Now that the active part of the rebellion had become history, she had no hesitation in speaking out from her solid place on the winning side.
“This wretched struggle is over, and we may be plain with one another, Lord Balnillo,” she continued. “You, at least, have had much to alarm you.”
“I have been a peaceful servant of law and order all my life,” said he, “and as such I have conceived it my place to stand aloof. It has been my duty to restrain violence of all kinds.”