She turned sad, wayward, but was impressed by De Stancy's manner and words.

She appeared indeed to have a smouldering desire to please him.

In the afternoon she said to Charlotte, 'I mean to do as your brother says.' A note was despatched to Havill that very day, and in an hour the crestfallen architect presented himself at the castle.

Paula instantly gave him audience, commiserated him, and commissioned him to carry out a first section of the buildings, comprising work to the extent of about twenty thousand pounds expenditure; and then, with a prematureness quite amazing among architects' clients, she handed him over a cheque for five hundred pounds on account.
When he had gone, Paula's bearing showed some sign of being disquieted at what she had done; but she covered her mood under a cloak of saucy serenity.

Perhaps a tender remembrance of a certain thunderstorm in the foregoing August when she stood with Somerset in the arbour, and did not own that she loved him, was pressing on her memory and bewildering her.
She had not seen quite clearly, in adopting De Stancy's suggestion, that Somerset would now have no professional reason for being at the castle for the next twelve months.
But the captain had, and when Havill entered the castle he rejoiced with great joy.