“Am I being told—you must pardon me if I have misunderstood your meaning—that you are no longer engaged to Mr. Ridgway?”
She made obvious the absence of the solitaire she had worn.
Before the long scrutiny of his steady gaze: her eyes at last fell.
“If you don’t mind, I’ll postpone going just yet,” he said quietly.
Her racing heart assured her fearfully, delightfully, that she did not mind at all.
“I have no time and no compass to take my bearings. You will pardon me if what I say seems presumptuous?”
Silence, which is not always golden, oppressed her. Why could she not make light talk as she had been wont to do with Waring Ridgway?
“But if I ask too much, I shall not be hurt if you deny me,” he continued. “For how long has your engagement with Mr. Ridgway been broken, may I ask?”
“Between fifteen and twenty minutes.”
“A lovers’ quarrel, perhaps!” he hazarded gently.