Yet that very fact made him the more anxious to see her, and find out for himself how far his suspicions were justified. "Good Heavens," thought Gerard, getting up and pacing restlessly to and fro "how can she care for a fellow like that—so second-rate, so superficial, such a—such a cad? What is Eleanor thinking of to have him at the house? Some one really ought to give her a hint—not I; but—some one." ...
The end of it all was that he strolled into Mrs. Van Antwerp's drawing-room that afternoon, his usual air of well-bred impassiveness unmoved by the sight of Paul Halleck seated at the piano, and the cynosure of several pairs of admiring feminine eyes.
Elizabeth's eyes were not among them. She was in a back room pouring tea. But Gerard had no sooner assured himself of her being thus harmlessly employed, than his jealous heart suggested that there was something sinister in such apparent indifference.
He wandered into the other room as soon as he decently could. She was seated at the tea-table, for the moment, entirely alone. Seen thus off guard, for she did not at first perceive Gerard, there was something indefinably weary and listless in her attitude. She was paler even than she had been that day at the Portrait Show, and the lines beneath her eyes were not black, but purple. It would have gone ill with her reputation as a beauty had it been put to the vote that afternoon. But it was Gerard's peculiarity, his misfortune perhaps, that she appealed to him most at times when to the world at large she was looking her worst. He stood watching her for a moment. Presently she looked up. She caught sight of him. Instantly the warm, lovely color rushed into her cheeks, only to retreat, and leave her paler than before—but not till he had seen it.
His manner was very gentle as he approached her and asked for a cup of tea. She poured it out mechanically, with a hand that trembled.
"We have not seen you lately," she said, with eyes carefully riveted on the tea-things. "Eleanor was wondering—what had become of you."
"Indeed! It was very kind of her to give me a thought." Gerard stirred his tea absently. "I was busy," he said "with an article I had promised for a magazine."
"Ah! You write a great deal, don't you?" Elizabeth looked up with some interest. "I should like to see some of your articles, if I may."
He smiled. "You don't know what you're asking. You'd find them very dull."
"What, because I'm so dull myself?" she asked, with a flash of spirit.