It did not escape her sharp eyes that something was the matter, and she determined to take the earliest opportunity to find out what it was.
"I do hope to goodness," she said to herself, "that it is not her engagement that she is tired of—and everything going on so nicely!"
And then she took off Rachel's sealskin cap and jacket, settled her by the fireside, furnished her with a cup of fragrant tea and some thin bread and butter, and left her to herself while she attended to her mother's wants.
Beatrice and her tea had a generally cheering and invigorating effect.
Mr. Kingston, making himself comfortable in a very easy chair, grew talkative and witty upon the news of the day and the latest items of fashionable gossip; in the society of this charming little woman of the world—his world—the satisfaction of being in town again began to creep over him pleasantly.
He stayed for half an hour—outstaying Ned, who retired modestly at the end of twenty minutes; then he led Rachel into the hall, kissed her, told her to go to bed early and come out with him for a ride in the morning, and went off to his club—sorry to leave his little lady-love, but glad to be able to get his letters, to hear what was going on in Melbourne, and to read his "Argus" on the day of publication again.
After his departure Mrs. Hardy and Beatrice plunged fathoms deep in talk. Mrs. Hardy wanted to know how her husband and her servants, and her neighbours and her friends, had been conducting themselves during her absence, and Beatrice wanted minute particulars about Lucilla and the baby.
Rachel had no occasion to feel herself de trop; at the same time she saw she was not wanted. She sauntered softly round the room, laid some music scattered about over the piano in a neat pile, re-arranged some yellow pansies that were tumbling out of a green Vallauris bowl, and then stole noiselessly into the hall and out of the house.
The grounds of the Hardy domain were more beautiful with flowers now than she had ever seen them; but she did not stay amongst the flowers. She went down little lonely paths, intersecting vegetable beds and forcing-frames, to a gate at the bottom of the kitchen-garden, where she was within speaking distance of the workmen engaged on the new house, with nothing to impede a full view of their operations.
She was feverishly anxious to know how they were going on—whether they were still "pottering at the foundations," or whether the stage of walls had set in.