“Richard.”
“Am I right, Clara, in suspecting that Mr. Richard Wardour admired you?”
The question produced its intended effect. The question helped Clara to go on.
“I hardly knew at first,” she said, “whether he admired me or not. He was very strange in his ways—headstrong, terribly headstrong and passionate; but generous and affectionate in spite of his faults of temper. Can you understand such a character?”
“Such characters exist by thousands. I have my faults of temper. I begin to like Richard already. Go on.”
“The days went by, Lucy, and the weeks went by. We were thrown very much together. I began, little by little, to have some suspicion of the truth.”
“And Richard helped to confirm your suspicions, of course?”
“No. He was not—unhappily for me—he was not that sort of man. He never spoke of the feeling with which he regarded me. It was I who saw it. I couldn’t help seeing it. I did all I could to show that I was willing to be a sister to him, and that I could never be anything else. He did not understand me, or he would not, I can’t say which.”
“‘Would not,’ is the most likely, my dear. Go on.”
“It might have been as you say. There was a strange, rough bashfulness about him. He confused and puzzled me. He never spoke out. He seemed to treat me as if our future lives had been provided for while we were children. What could I do, Lucy?”