And then, led on by his eager sympathy and his intimate knowledge of her home, she had abandoned the jesting note and talked simply and frankly of her secluded and eventless life. With feminine guile, and with last night’s newborn mistrust of men, she set a little trap.
“Did you ever go into my mother’s room?”
“I don’t think so. Perhaps that was the one—the best bedroom—which Olifant always kept locked.”
She felt ashamed of her unworthy suspicion; glad at the loyal keeping of a promise, to the extent of not allowing a visitor even a peep inside the forbidden chamber.
“I think Blaise Olifant is one of the finest types England breeds,” she said warmly.
There was a touch of jealous fear in his swift glance; but he replied with equal warmth:
“You needn’t tell me that. Brave, modest, of sensitive honour—Ah! A man with a mind so cultivated that he seems to know nothing until you talk with him, and then you find that he knows everything. I love him.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that.”
“Why? Do you admire him so much?”
“It isn’t that,” she parried. “It’s on your account. One man’s generous praise of another does one’s heart good.” She threw out her arms as though to embrace the rolling park of infinite sward and majestic trees. “I love big things,” she said.