“Is that a man in the grounds?” demanded the distant monitorial voice. And Conkling, for the first time, was no longer at his ease.
“Y-yes,” the girl called hesitatingly back.
Her face was quite pale, and the meekness in her voice rather disturbed the man at the easel. He peered about for the author of that over-disturbing challenge, but he could see nothing.
“Lavinia,” commanded the shrill and mysteriously distant voice—and Conkling for a moment wondered why that name should fret his memory with an uncaptured association—“Lavinia, unchain Nero at once!”
Conkling caught a sound like a gasp from the girl with the shears.
“Please don’t mind,” she said without turning her head. “He’s so old!”
“Who’s so old?” asked Conkling. He had begun to repack his thumb box.
“Nero. I have to soak his bread crusts for him. He has no teeth left. But I really think you ought to go!”
There was no misjudging her distress. It amounted almost to terror, and the mystery of it was sufficient to revive his audacity.
“May I come back?” he asked, tingling a trifle before the amazed innocence of her eyes.