Page:Confidence (London, Macmillan & Co., 1921).djvu/167

 way to turn. Bernard came straight up to her, with a gallant smile and a greeting. The comparison is a coarse one, but he felt that he was taking the bull by the horns. Angela Vivian stood watching him arrive.

"You didn't recognise me," he said, "and your not recognising me made me—made me hesitate."

For a moment she said nothing, and then—

"You are more timid than you used to be!" she answered.

He could hardly have said what expression he had expected to find in her face; his apprehension had, perhaps, not painted her obtrusively pale and haughty, aggressively cold and stern; but it had figured something different from the look he encountered. Miss Vivian was simply blushing—that was what Bernard mainly perceived; he saw that her surprise had been extreme—complete. Her blush was reassuring; it contradicted the idea of impatient resentment, and Bernard took some satisfaction in noting that it was prolonged.

"Yes, I am more timid than I used to be," he said. In spite of her blush, she continued to look at him very directly; but she had always done that—she always met one's eye; and Bernard now instantly found all the beauty that he had ever found before in her clear unevasive glance.

"I don't know whether I am more brave," she said; "but I must tell the truth—I instantly recognised you."

"You gave no sign!"

"I supposed I gave a striking one—in getting up and going away."

"Ah," said Bernard, "as I say, I am more timid than I was, and I didn't venture to interpret that as a sign of recognition."

"It was a sign of surprise." 159