'Well, we are talking with unexpected frankness.'
'But you are not seriously displeased with me for saying what, after all, one can't help feeling and thinking?'
'No. Only be so good as to leave off going further for the present. Indeed, of the two, I would rather have the other sort of address. I mean,' she hastily added, 'that what you urge as the result of a real affection, however unsuitable, I have some remote satisfaction in listening to--not the least from any reciprocal love on my side, but from a woman's gratification at being the object of anybody's devotion; for that feeling towards her is always regarded as a merit in a woman's eye, and taken as a kindness by her, even when it is at the expense of her convenience.'
She had said, voluntarily or involuntarily, better things than he expected, and perhaps too much in her own opinion, for she hardly gave him an opportunity of replying.
They passed St. Goar and Boppard, and when steering round the sharp bend of the river just beyond the latter place De Stancy met her again, exclaiming, 'You left me very suddenly.'
'You must make allowances, please,' she said; 'I have always stood in need of them.'
'Then you shall always have them.'
'I don't doubt it,' she said quickly; but Paula was not to be caught again, and kept close to the side of her aunt while they glided past Brauback and Oberlahnstein. Approaching Coblenz her aunt said, 'Paula, let me suggest that you be not so much alone with Captain De Stancy.'
'And why?' said Paula quietly.
'You'll have plenty of offers if you want them, without taking trouble,' said the direct Mrs. Goodman. 'Your existence is hardly known to the world yet, and Captain De Stancy is too near middle-age for a girl like you.' Paula did not reply to either of these remarks, being seemingly so interested in Ehrenbreitstein's heights as not to hear them.