It was Edala who spoke. Elvesdon had been contemplating her with a furtive but admiring satisfaction, as she sat there in her low chair, the gold aureole of her head resting back against her clasped hands. There was something in her every movement—her every pose—that fascinated him; yet not an atom of self-consciousness or posing was there about her. And her very attire. The well-fitting blouse of light blue, set off the blue of her eyes, the gold of her hair; the cool white skirt, from which peeped one white shoe—all, he decided, was perfect. At the question he half started.
“The latest?” he echoed. “Well, Miss Thornhill, I don’t think there is any ‘latest.’ Things are much the same as ever, and likely to remain so.”
Her eyes were full upon his face, which they seemed to be reading like an open page. She shook her head slightly.
“Ah—you are not going to tell me. You won’t say anything before me because I’m a girl. That’s what you’re thinking. Now—isn’t it?”
Elvesdon, whom we believe we have shown was as far from being a fool as the small minority of people, felt a little disconcerted, and only hoped he was not showing it. As a matter of fact that was exactly what he had been thinking. All his official instincts were dead against discussing official matters in the presence of the other sex; and the question she had asked certainly covered very official matters; far more official—even delicate—at that juncture than his light and ready answer should have led his questioner to believe. Equally, as a matter of fact, she was not deceived by its lightness and readiness for one moment. But before he could frame a second answer Thornhill came to the rescue.
“What should there be of the ‘latest,’ child?” he said, dropping a sinewy sun-browned hand caressingly upon her long slim, and yet also sun-browned one. “You shouldn’t rush Mr Elvesdon in his official capacity you know. It isn’t playing the game. Besides, it’s a sort of ‘day of rest’ remember, so we mustn’t talk shop.”
“Ah-ah-ah! That’s all very well,” she answered, with a laugh, but not wholly a mirthful one. “If you two were alone together you’d be talking no end of that very kind of shop. I know.”
Elvesdon had quite recovered his self-possession. His official susceptibilities were somewhat ruffled by the remark. It was not a question thoughtlessly put by a mere thoughtless girl. This was nothing of the kind, but a woman, with infinite capacity for thought. The question was nothing, but the manner in which the answer had been taken argued something of petulance, even obstinacy. Now the latter is not an attractive quality in the other sex, he decided, even less, if possible, than in his own.
Then he mentally damned himself for a suspicious and most ill-conditioned curmudgeon, an official prig. This girl with the thoughtful eyes, and quick, bright, intelligent mind, had asked him a mere harmless question—only for information, for she was interested in everything; not out of motives of curiosity—and lo, he had shrunk into his official shell, and had more than half snubbed her; snubbed her by implication at any rate. But—how she puzzled him. He had seen her but once before, but he had thought of her a good many more times than that. She was so totally unlike any other girl he had ever seen in his life.
“Have you been drawing much lately, Miss Thornhill?” he said, interestedly, as though to make up for his former answer. But the remark had just the opposite effect. He was ‘talking down to’ her now, Edala was thinking. Drawing, painting, singing—those were interests enough for a girl. She must not raise her eyes to weightier and more human matters. But her nature was an intensely self-concentrated one, and self-controlled.