The dry meaning of the tone, the quizzical look, earned for the speaker a playful pinch on the arm.
“Don’t be prophetic, Uncle Seward, especially with regard to a perfect stranger.”
“Perfect—eh? H’m—ha! Still I think we haven’t seen the last of—Perfection. Good name that. Meanwhile, I shall have to find out something about him over and above his relationship with my old pal Varne Coates, before asking his intentions.”
This earned for the speaker another pinch—a harder one this time, and the chaff and raillery flowed on. And John Seward Mervyn was conscious of feeling very happy, very contented. This element of youthfulness and bright spirits was just that in which his solitary life had been lacking. Then it had been supplied; and again and again, every hour of late he had blessed the chance which had supplied it.
But with this complacent consciousness, there was this evening ever so slight a misgiving, and—while he candidly owned to himself his motive was a selfish one—he hoped their newly found acquaintance would, for any reason or none, come no more.
Chapter Seventeen.
Of some Talk on a Road.
The year had dawned more and more into daylight if not correspondingly into warmth, and for Melian life had become more of a settled thing at Heath Hover. So far she was content, but a dreadful suspicion was coming upon her that she might not be always content. She had a sort of instinctive longing for work again, and that for its own sake—to be doing. And in this quiet, rather lonely life, there was no scope for such.