Her eyes met mine, and I saw in their dark depths a deep and trusting
love. Yet I was socially her superior, and had foolishly imagined that
we could always remain friends without becoming lovers. When I
reflected how years ago I used to chat with her in her father's shop, in
the days when she was a hoydenish schoolgirl, and compared her then with
what she was now, I saw her as a graceful, modest, and extremely
beautiful woman, who possessed the refinement of speech and grace of
carriage which many women in higher standings in life would have envied,
and whom I knew was honest and upright, although practically alone and
unprotected in that great world of London.
"You must forgive me," I said. "I ought to have seen you before I went
away, but I left hurriedly with my sister and her husband. You know
what a restless pair they are."
"Of course," she answered. "But you've been back in England several
weeks. Mary Daffern wrote to me and said she had seen you driving in
Stamford nearly three weeks ago."
"Yes," I replied. "I was sick of the eternal rounds of Nice and Monte
Carlo, so travelled straight to Tixover without breaking my journey in
town. But surely," I added, "it doesn't matter much if I don't see you
for a month or two. It never has mattered."
Her eyes were fixed upon the ground, and I thought her lips trembled.
"Of course it does," she responded. "I like to know how and where you
are. We are friends--indeed, you are the oldest friend I have in
London."
"But you have your other admirers," I said. "Men who take you about,
entertain you, flatter you, and all that sort of thing."
"Yes, yes," she answered hurriedly. "But you know I hate them all. I
merely accept their invitations because it takes me out of the dreary
groove in which my work lies. It's impossible for a woman to go about
alone, and the attentions of men amuse me rather than gratify my natural
woman's vanity."
She spoke sensibly, as few of her age would speak. Her parents had been
honest, upright, God-fearing folk, and she had been taught to view life
philosophically.
"But you have loved," I suggested. "You can't really tell me with truth
that of all these men who have escorted you about of an evening and on
Sundays there is not one for whom you have developed some feeling of
affection."
She blushed and glanced up at me shyly.
"It really isn't fair to ask me that," she protested, flicking at the
last year's leaves with the point of her umbrella. "A woman must have a
heart like stone if she never experiences any feeling of love. If I
replied in the negative I should only lie to you. That you know quite
well."
"Then you have a lover, eh?" I exclaimed quickly, perhaps in a tone of
ill-concealed regret.
"No," she responded, in a low, firm voice, "I have no lover." Then
after a few moments' pause she inquired, "Why do you ask me that?"
"Because, Muriel," I said seriously, taking her hand, "because I desire
to know the truth."
"Why?" she asked, looking at me in mingled amazement and alarm. "We are
friends, it is true; but your friendship gives you no right to endeavour
to learn the secret of my heart," and she gently withdrew her hand from
my grasp.