"As you like," he made answer, with would-be nonchalance. "Either I or Francis—or the man, if we are prevented."
And then Hazel’s eyes were opened, figuratively and actually, and she gazed upon him for some moments in mute wonder and some little distress. While he spoke and acted like the Digby she had known so long, her suspicions were not aroused, her mind being fully occupied with managing him—smoothing the little difficulties that his importunities caused her, keeping him at arm’s length instinctively, all unconscious that she was doing so, or that there was any need to do so. But now the situation began to dawn upon her. While he remained attentive to all her little needs and wishes, displaying an odd admixture of slavish devotion and proprietary authority, such as had characterised his attitude towards her so long as she could remember—for even the rough schoolboy had lorded it over the very small maiden—she had taken it all as a matter of course—as Digby’s "way." For tenderness, shame-faced at first, had crept in so imperceptibly, so gradually supplanting the old rough-and-ready affection; and the old boyish, somewhat overbearing and dictatorial manner had by such gentle degrees given place to another sort of proprietariness, that these things seemed to have grown with his growth; and the girl, beyond an occasional sense of annoyance at such times, when Digby appeared rather trying and more difficult to manage than of yore, had never given the matter a second thought. But now, with this abrupt change of front, this veering round, so to say, from eager and solicitous attention to a poorly assumed indifference, manifestly born of a certain recklessness and of deeply felt resentment against herself, a horrible suggestion presented itself to the girl’s mind, and she looked at Digby Travers in wide-eyed dismay.
"I believe he is beginning to be a sort of lover," she said to herself, and her heart beat a little faster.
She reflected upon this new problem at her ease, after she had been safely bestowed in a first-class compartment with ladies, of whom Digby had inquired their destination, committing Hazel to their charge.
Many little incidents recurred to her mind, that had puzzled her at the time, but now seemed to explain themselves with unmistakable conviction.