“Oh, no! He has taken the little private sitting-room. Leo seems to think of everything, and it is such a comfort to have him to arrange for us. Wasn’t it strange, his arriving when he did just in time to come and meet us at the station? You will let me send up a tray to you here, Joan?”
“No,” Joan said resolutely. “I am going down.”
She took the lead as usual, passing first through the door. Leo met them on the stairs, his vigorous frame and tawny beard showing even more marked resemblance to those of George Rutherford in full daylight than in the dimness of the evening before. Joan’s black eyes looked up into his brown ones defiantly, as she read there surprise and disapproval.
“Mr. Forest has not been in yet. You were wrong to get up, Joan,” he said, with a brotherly frankness which she resented.
“I didn’t choose to lie in bed,” she answered.
“Where is breakfast to be?”
Nessie pointed to a door just below the flight.
“And where is father?”
Leo drew a little aside, for Joan to pass him.
“Breakfast first,” he said.