"It was my fault, my lord. I did not see you."
"No. I find that most people do not." There was no bitterness in it, only a kind of weary exactness. "You are the secretary."
"Clara Whitlow, my lord."
"Yes. My grandmother mentioned it. She said that you were young." He paused. "She said that you liked paper."
"I do, my lord."
"Why?"
It was so unexpected that she answered without thinking. "Because it is honest. People say one thing and mean another. Paper cannot do that. It says what it says. Even when it lies, it lies in the writer's own hand, and you can read the hesitation."
There was a silence. She could hear him breathing in the dark.
"That is an odd thing to say," said the Viscount at last.
"I am sorry, my lord."
"Do not be sorry. It is the first interesting thing anyone has said to me in six months." She heard the faint scrape of his boot. "I walk at night, Miss Whitlow. I do not sleep well. If I disturb you, you must tell me."
"You do not disturb me."
"No?" Something that might have been the ghost of a smile moved in his voice. "That is very civil of you. Good night."
He was gone, with the step and the drag, up the stairs and into the dark, and Clara stood alone in the hall with her heart going very fast and her candle lying dead on the floor.
She told herself it was the surprise.
It became a habit, after that, in the way that small things do. He did not seek her out, and she did not seek him, but the house was large and its hours were few, and once or twice a week she would come upon him in the gallery, or the library, or the cold green parlour with the shrouded harpsichord, and he would say, "Miss Whitlow," and she would say, "My lord," and they would talk for a quarter of an hour, in the dark, about nothing at all.