'I might be bolder then.'

'Imagine it now. There is no disloyalty in your calling your friends by
their names.'

Her nature rang to the implication. 'I am not bound.' Dartrey hung
fast, speculating on her visibly: 'I heard you were?'

'No. I must be free.'

'It is not an engagement?'

'Will you laugh?--I have never quite known. My father desired it:
and my desire is to please him. I think I am vain enough to think I read
through blinds and shutters. The engagement--what there was--has been,
to my reading, broken more than once. I have not considered it, to
settle my thoughts on it, until lately: and now I may suspect it to be
broken. I have given cause--if it is known. There is no blame
elsewhere. I am not unhappy, Captain Dartrey.'

'Captain by courtesy. Very well. Tell me how Nesta judges the
engagement to be broken?'

She was mentally phrasing before she said: 'Absence.'

'He was here yesterday.'

All that the visit embraced was in her expressive look, as of sight
drawing inward, like our breath in a spell of wonderment. 'Then I
understand; it enlightens me.