_He used to dare to think!_ He cast his calculating untrue eyes upon me as he spoke; and I knew that he remembered as vividly as I did, and was only trying how far he could impose on my credulity and make me think him blameless. The idea nerved me for action. Had I followed the bent of my inclinations, I should have hurled indignant reproaches on his head, and made him, in consequence, believe that his conduct had still the power to pain me. But I stamped on my inclination, and answered him as coolly as if the subject were of the utmost indifference, and revived no recollections whatever, pleasant or unpleasant, with regard to himself. ‘And so I did,’ I replied. ‘I had so few companions of my own age at Norwood, I remember hailing your advent as a perfect godsend. It was a very dull place for a girl to live in, particularly in the quiet way we used to do.’ ‘I never thought it dull,’ he sighed—‘that is, when I was with you.’ ‘Oh, you forget! It happened such a long time ago! But I can remember some very dull afternoons we spent there, when the roads were all mud and it rained continuously, and we had no resource indoors except playing at cards and singing over those eternal old songs of mine.’ ‘You never sing now,’ he said eagerly. ‘How charmed I should be to hear some of the dear old songs! Won’t you sing them to me, Hilda?’ ‘No, I never sing now, Mr. Charteris. My voice is not strong, and I have too many other things to do.’ ‘You might sing for _me_ though, just to revive that happy memory. I suppose the _reality_ will never come over again, will it?’ I looked in his face with well-feigned surprise. ‘How can what is past come over again? and with my dear mother gone, too! I think you are talking nonsense, Mr. Charteris.’ ‘You must know what I mean. Will the old feelings we had for each other never be revived?’ I knew as well as he did what he meant. He wanted to make love to me again—to make me believe once more that his soft tones and looks and words were good for what they seemed. But the spell was broken, the old glamour had faded away. I saw him as the world saw him, and I was not to be taken in a second time. ‘I don’t see that they want reviving, Mr. Charteris. We liked each other very well then, and I suppose we like each other very well now. We haven’t quarrelled, have we? Perhaps I am a graver woman than you expected to see; but five years is a long interval, you know: and it is more likely you have forgotten what I was, than that I have altered as much as you seem to suppose.’ ‘You don’t see it in the same light as I do,’ he said, with a deep sigh that he pumped up from the lowest depths of his waistcoat. He wanted me to blush and look conscious and uncomfortable, and then he would have seized the opportunity to swear he had been loving me through all the period of our separation, and should be miserable until he heard that I loved him in return.