She sat down too, veiling the real embarrassment of a school-girl by an assumption of great dignity. Maurice looked at her and felt perplexed. Somehow he could not believe that Brooke's daughter was such a very frivolous girl when he came to look at her. She had a fine brow, expressive eyes, a very eloquent mouth. He wondered what she was reading. Glancing at the title of the book, his heart sank within him. She had a yellow-backed novel in her hand, of a profoundly light and frivolous type. Maurice was fond of certain kinds of novels, but there were others that he disliked and despised, and, as it happened, Lesley had got hold of one of these.
"You are reading?" he said. "Am I interrupting you very much?"
"Oh, no," Lesley answered, smiling and shutting the book. "Tea is coming up, you see. I am falling into English habits, and beginning to love the hour of tea."
Sarah brought in the tea-tray as she spoke; and even Sarah's sour visage relaxed a little at the sight of the young doctor. She went downstairs, and presently returned with a plate of small, sweet cakes, which she placed rather ostentatiously upon the table.
"Sarah must have brought those cakes especially for me," said Mr. Kenyon lightly, when she had left the room. "She knows they are my especial favorites. And your father's too. I don't know how many dozen your father and I have not eaten, with our coffee sometimes in an evening! I suppose you are learning to like them for his sake!"
He was talking against time for the sake of giving her back the confidence that she seemed to have lost, for her face had flushed and paled again more than once since his entry. But perhaps he was wrong, for she answered him with a quietness of tone which showed no perturbation.
"These little macaroon things, you mean? I like them very much already. I did not know that my father cared about them. I have been away so long"—smilingly—"that I know but little of his tastes."
"I could envy you the pleasure you will have, then?" said Maurice, quickly.
Lesley opened her brown eyes. "The—the pleasure?" she faltered in an inquiring tone.
"Yes, the pleasure of discovering what are the tastes and feelings of a man like your father," said Maurice.