VIOLANTE (with an indignant flash from her dark eyes).—“There!—again!—you delight in provoking me!”
HARLEY.—“It was the doll, then. Don’t cry; I will get you another.”
Violante plucked her arm from him, and walked away towards the countess in speechless scorn. Harley’s brow contracted, in thought and in gloom. He stood still for a moment or so, and then joined the ladies.
“I am trespassing sadly on your morning; but I wait for a visitor whom I sent to before you were up. He is to be here at twelve. With your permission, I will dine with you tomorrow, and you will invite him to meet me.”
“Certainly. And who is your friend? I guess—the young author?”
“Leonard Fairfield,” cried Violante, who had conquered, or felt ashamed, of her short-lived anger.
“Fairfield!” repeated Lady Lansmere. “I thought, Harley, you said the name was Oran.”
“He has assumed the latter name. He is the son of Mark Fairfield, who married an Avenel. Did you recognize no family likeness?—none in those eyes, Mother?” said Harley, sinking his voice into a whisper.
“No;” answered the countess, falteringly.
Harley, observing that Violante was now speaking to Helen about Leonard, and that neither was listening to him, resumed in the same low tone, “And his mother—Nora’s sister—shrank from seeing me! That is the reason why I wished you not to call. She has not told the young man why she shrank from seeing me; nor have I explained it to him as yet. Perhaps I never shall.”