Stella could not refuse. They entered the little drawing-room. Stella had never seen such a funny, prim room before. She sat down on the slippery sofa. Unity fixed on her the eyes of a spaniel brought into the presence of a long-lost mistress.
“I think you 're even more beautiful than when I saw you before,” she said, abruptly.
Somewhat confused, Stella smiled. “I am well now, like other people, so that's perhaps why I look better.”
“When I heard of it, I cried with joy.”
“You, my dear? Why?”
“I 'd been thinking of you all the time—all the time.”
And Stella had never given a thought to Unity, though dramatic incidents at the Channel House had not been so frequent that the sight of Unity had not, brought back to her mind the circumstances of the episode. Stay, had she remembered all the circumstances?
“My dear,” she said, moved by the girl's almost passionate sincerity, “I remember you well. I wanted you so much to come back and talk to me, and I asked for you; but they told me that you went away that afternoon. What were you doing at the Channel House?”
“I had been ill, and my guardian asked her ladyship to let me stay there for a bit.”
“But they told me,” cried Stella, the missing circumstance coming in a flash, “that you were a village girl who had been brought in for a day's sewing.”