She was as distinctly not grave. "How do _you_ come to know so little?"
"It's not my fault," he said very gently. "A particular combination of misfortunes has forbidden me, till this hour, to come within a mile of it."
These words evidently struck her as so exactly the right ones to proceed from the lawful heir that such a felicity of misery could only quicken her interest. He was plainly as good in his way as the old butler--the particular combination of misfortunes corresponded to the lifelong service. Her interest, none the less, in its turn, could only quicken her pity, and all her emotions, we have already seen, found prompt enough expression. What could any expression do indeed now but mark the romantic reality? "Why, you poor thing!"--she came toward him on the weary road. "Now that you've got here I hope at least you'll stay." Their intercourse must pitch itself--so far as she was concerned--in some key that would make up for things. "Do make yourself comfortable. Don't mind me."
Yule looked a shade less serious. "That's exactly what I wanted to say to _you_!"
She was struck with the way it came in. "Well, if you _had_ been haughty, I shouldn't have been quite crushed, should I?"
The young man's gravity, at this, completely yielded. "I'm never haughty--oh, no!"
She seemed even more amused. "Fortunately then, as _I'm_ never crushed. I don't think," she added, "that I'm really as crushable as you."
The smile with which he received this failed to conceal completely that it was something of a home thrust. "Aren't we really _all_ crushable--by the right thing?"
She considered a little. "Don't you mean rather by the wrong?"
He had got, clearly, a trifle more accustomed to her being extraordinary. "Are you sure we always know them apart?"
She weighed the responsibility. "I always do. Don't you?"
"Oh," she replied, "I don't think, thank goodness, we have positively 'every time' to distinguish."
She turned this over; then with her wonderful living look, "I'm glad to hear it," she exclaimed, "because, I fear, I always _do_! You'll certainly think," she added with more gravity, "that I've taken a line today!"
"Do you mean that of mistress of the house? Yes--you do seem in possession!"