It was Althea who, during the next few days, while Gerald with the greatest tact and composure made his approaches, was most unconscious of what was approaching her.

Everybody else now saw quite clearly what Gerald's intentions were.

Althea was dazed; she did not know what the bright object that had come so overpoweringly into her life wanted of her.

She had feared--sickeningly--with a stiffening of her whole nature to resistance, that he wanted to flirt with her as well as with Lady Pickering.

Then she had seen that he wasn't going to flirt, that he was going to be her friend, and then--this in the two or three days that followed Gerald's talk with Helen--that he was going to be a dear one.
She had only adjusted her mind to this grave joy and wondered, with all the perplexity of her own now recognised love, whether it could prove more than a very tremulous joy, when the final revelation came upon her.
It came, and it was still unexpected, one afternoon when she and Gerald sat in the drawing-room together.