“You don’t mean that. It hurts me,” she cried quickly, really wounded.
Goddard’s heart came into his eyes. The goddess had come down from the far-off pedestal where he had worshipped her, and was by his side, throbbing woman. He had a strange intoxicating sense of her nearness. He raised his hand and touched the edges of the feather firescreen she was holding in her lap.
“Forgive me,” he said. “It is hard to believe that my success or my failure is of concern to you.”
“Why is it hard?” she asked in a low voice, looking down.
“Because it means more than my wildest dreams could ever bid me hope,” he replied, with a sudden rush of passion.
There was a long silence. Lady Phayre could find no words to answer, conscious that her muteness was an expectation of fuller avowal.
But Goddard’s brain was whirling with wonder and strange joy. His hand sunk a hair’s-breadth, and touched her knee. The contact was electric to him. He drew his hand away quickly, and, rising to his feet, stretched himself, as if he had awakened out of a dream. He could scarcely realise what had happened. His enthusiastic practical life had not been fertile in psychological moments. Lady Phayre looked up at him with angelic sweetness. Generally more graceful than seductive, she was bewilderingly woman at this moment. Suddenly, with an instinct of self-preservation, she rose too, and laughed.
“I told you I believed in you, you know. Our little faiths are of moment to us.”
Her light tone saved the situation. Talk was resumed, but it did not flow so spontaneously as before. At last Goddard rose to leave. She was solicitous as to his rest. Had he any more work to-night?
“I am going straight home,” he answered, with a laugh.