"I feel very frightened," she said, and clung to me as we went down the stairs. I believe I was almost as nervous as she could have been; for I was indeed drawing a bow at a venture. But I dared not let her guess my feelings, lest she should run back upstairs.
So I took her hand and pushed on steadily, and when James opened the door of the room I led her right across to where the Duke sat, and, with my heart thumping against my ribs I said, just as I had thought to say:
"This is Gareth, Duke Ladislas."
His bird-like face was as black as a night-storm. His keen eyes watched us both, glancing swiftly from my face to Gareth's, and from her back to me as we hurried across the room. The heavy brows were pent, and when we stood in front of him there came an ominous pause—like the calm when the storm is to burst.
Gareth was so frightened by this reception that the clutch of her fingers tightened on mine. I felt her trembling and saw her colour go, as she flinched with a little gasping catch of the breath all eloquent of fear.
His Excellency had risen at our entrance, and I saw him stare with a start of astonishment at Gareth, and from her to the stern old Duke; and then he lowered his head and closed his eyes, and I noticed that he clenched his right hand. He feared as much as I did for the result of my experiment.
The silence was almost intolerable; those vulture eyes fixed with deadly intentness upon us both, and the hard unyielding face set in the stern, cold, impassive, expressionless scrutiny.
Bitterly I began to repent my rashness, when a great change came, wrought by Gareth.
With surely one of the happiest instincts that ever came to a child, half helpless as she was with fright, she slipped her fingers from mine and, throwing herself on her knees at the Duke's feet, she caught his hand and held it and looked up frankly in his face and cried: