Doris was a different being this day from the girl whom he had met last in the house. She held herself in; she did not chatter; her voice was low; her colour was normal; her eyes were not brilliant. Despite Mrs. Brutt's advice that she should "let herself go"—advice which she had not forgotten,—she was bent upon undoing the previous impression.
So she heard, smiled, and was gracious; and if a slight yawn had to be more than once suppressed, he did not see. That she could be charming in a reckless mood, he knew; but this self-restraint, this pretty girlish dignity, suited him far better. He decided that Katherine must already have used influence to bring about such an improvement; and he sent across a grateful glance, which set Katherine's pulse leaping. Then he reverted to Doris and the Stone Age, and forgot her.
Mrs. Brutt had the Squire to herself; and—despite the dress blunder— she was bent on making the most of her chance. By hook or by crook she dragged in two or three titled names, offering them as credentials for her own respectability. Then discussion of the neighbourhood followed. Presently, gliding into foreign travel, she conducted her polite listener through two or three galleries of pictures, and was just beginning to suggest anew the advantages of a trip abroad for Doris,—"So important for the development of a young mind! So widening, didn't he think?" —when a break occurred; one of those odd sudden breaks which sometimes come without apparent reason.
One instant all three couples were hard at work. The next—voices had stopped, as if by general consent.
"Farmer Paine—" had sounded clearly in Mrs. Stirling's little bird-like tones. And everybody waited to hear what would come next.
Afterwards Mrs. Brutt recalled that it was the Squire himself who first stopped; stopped in the middle of a sentence. He tried to catch it up, but in vain. Mrs. Brutt did not wish others to hear what she had to say about Doris; and her own attention was distracted by the farmer's name. Hamilton, having just arrived at the end of a lengthy statement, came likewise to a pause at the critical moment.
"Farmer Paine! Do you know him?" asked Mrs. Brutt, leaning forward. "Such an interesting old man! He told me all about his poor wife, and the niece that has come to live with him. A genuine son of the soil!— the real antique type, don't you know?"
Mrs. Stirling lifted her eyebrows. "He's a worthy old fellow," she said irreverently.
"I heard only yesterday," remarked Katherine, "about his widowed niece having come. Can that be Mrs. Morris—'Nurse Molly' that was?"
Mr. Stirling responded to her glance of inquiry. "Yes. She was your nurse for a short time." He spoke composedly, but his forehead was a mass of fine wrinkles,—a sure token of disquietude.