Lady Gerardine's eyelids drooped, just enough to veil her glance. She lay quite still, without even a contraction of the fingers that rested upon the sheet. Baby peeped at her in a sidelong, bird-like way, and felt inexplicably uncomfortable. She babbled on, stumbling over her words:
"He was riding such a brute of a horse, and sat it like a centaur—or whatever you call the thing. You never saw such an eye as the creature had; one of those raw chestnuts, you know, with a neck that goes up in the air and seems to hang loose. And he sat, just with the grip of his knees, you know. He is as thin as—as——" Simile was not Aspasia's strong point; she broke off. "You are not listening to a word I am saying." She swung her legs pettishly, in the short linen habit.
"I heard," said Rosamond, without lifting her eyes. "I heard very well."
"I'll go and take a bath," said Aspasia, sliding off the bed, and pausing for the expected protest. Aspasia's habit of plunging into water four or five times a day was a matter of perpetual household objurgation.
"Yes—I'm simply made of dust!" She moved towards the door. Still her aunt lay, fair and white and still. It seemed to the girl, scarcely even breathing.
"Do you know, Runkle's new secretary has come. The famous new Indian secretary—the pure native spring, you know," she cried, with a childish effort at dispelling that uncanny supineness. "He gave me an awful fright."
The long drooped lids flickered with a swift upward look of unseeing pupils.
"Fright! Why?"
"Oh! I don't know. It was fearfully silly of me. As I was coming along your passage, just now, I saw a hand hold back the curtain for me. I thought it was that Simpson. And as I bounced through I nearly fell into his arms—and found it was a black man—ugh! The famous new secretary, in fact. He stood like a stock, and I squeaked in my usual way. And then he smiled. I don't like Indians much, but that's a fine handsome fellow. Looks like a Sikh—I'm boring you. I'm off. Lord, here's Runkle! Runkle, I'm going to have a bath."
She turned with gusto to fling her little glove of defiance afresh in the new-comer's face—and this time was not disappointed of the effect.