“Shall I draw the other curtain, signor?” he asked.
Colin glanced at Pamela, and there was no need to ask her what she preferred.
“Yes, Nino,” he said. “And clear away now. Just leave the cloth.”
All through dinner they had been gay on trivial topics, and again and again she had known that battery of swift glances like signals that he had cast on her, as if unable to take his eyes off her for long. Now she pushed back the cloak that she had thrown over her shoulders.
“Ah, that’s right,” he said, more to himself than her.
Though he laughed at himself for doing so, he often listened to the sound of the breeze, as if to a wordless and friendly counsellor.
“What a delightful evening you’re giving me, Pamela,” he said. “You wean me from myself with your splendour and your gaiety. I declare that since you came into my room before dinner I haven’t once thought of that letter I found waiting for me.”
His eyebrows contracted as if with a twinge of pain.
“Yes. Oh, no bad news. Excellent news: she’s getting on wonderfully well without me. Hopes I am enjoying myself very much----”
“I know you do, bless you, and it would be black and ungrateful of me if I didn’t recognize that. My dear, you’ve been such a godsend, coming here to sit on the perch with the moping owl.”
“You mustn’t mope,” she said. “You’re an owl for moping, Colin.”
“I don’t mope except with you,” said he. “It’s shocking bad manners, I know, and yet it’s one of those involuntary compliments. Ooh, the relief of getting somebody who understands.”
His eyes left her face, dwelt hovering over her breast, and came back again.
She leaned forward over the table. She loved this weakness and this appeal.
“Violet has used you abominably,” she said.
“No, no: you mustn’t say that,” he interrupted.
“But I must say that. I want to help you, my dear, and ah, how lovely it is that you ask me to try--and you must lay hold on that. She gets on wonderfully well without you, you told me. Let that rouse your pride. Don’t let your happiness suffer shipwreck over that. Heavens, if I found that anyone I was fond of got on wonderfully well without me, that would make me determined to get on just as well without him. I saw how charming and gentle you were with her at Stanier, and she gives you a stone----”