"I have met him three or four times," she answered, a slight lift of surprise in her voice, and she looked up towards him. "Are you interested in architecture, Sir Oliver?"

"Not especially," he said with a smile. "I suppose I tend to be most aware of it when it offends me. I am rather used to agreeable surroundings. Perhaps I take them for granted. What is his work like? A less biased opinion than Miss Lambert's, if you have one...."

She laughed. "Oh, yes indeed. I did like him. He was so easy to talk to. Not in the least... brash or—oh, dear, I don't know how to pursue it without sounding..." She stopped again.

"Now you have me fascinated," he admitted. "Please tell me. Speak frankly, and I promise not to take offense—or to repeat it."

She regarded him uncertainly, then relaxed, and her eyes lost the anxiety they had held until that moment. He realized that without the artificial necessity to be charming, biddable, pretty and accommodating, she was almost certainly an intelligent and most likable person.

"Yes?" he prompted.

She laughed. "I found Mr. Melville one of the most comfortable people I ever encountered," she said, swirling gracefully in his arms as they negotiated a complicated corner, her huge, pale skirts flying. "He never seemed to misunderstand or to need to prove himself and—and parade ... as so many young men do ... I—" She bit her lip. "I hope that does not sound too unkind?"

"Not at all," he assured her. "Merely very candid. I know precisely what you mean. I have observed it, and I daresay if I were to glance around now I should see a score of examples. I was doubtless guilty of it myself... a few years ago."

She wanted to laugh. He could see it in her eyes, but good manners, and the slightness of their acquaintance, forbade it.

"Perhaps I still do...." He said it before she could complete the thought.

"Oh no," she denied. "I'm sure not now. You don't need to, and you must know that."

"The advantage of age." He laughed at himself.

Suddenly the vulnerability was back in her eyes, and he knew she was afraid he had referred to the difference in their ages to distance himself from her, to let her know gently that this was merely a courtesy acquaintance and could be nothing more. That was trae, but because of his feelings for Hester, not anything to do with Margaret Ballinger. Were it not for Hester, he might well have sought to know Margaret a good deal better.

He was chilled by the realization of how easy it was to hurt, without the slightest intention, simply because one was thinking of something else, watching some other imperative.