"Y—yes—only there isn't any 'k' in 'particularly.' But I think we'd better—ask someone, little brother. I don't imagine that children usually advertise for their own tutors."
"But there isn't any 'usually' about me, Bick. And certainly mother isn't 'usual,' nor you. And if she got a man I'd be sure to loathe him. Think of that chap Baker that she thought such a lot of. Why, he read poetry!"
"Poetry isn't any worse than music, is it?"
Tommy's mouth, as he smiled, was its most fawn-like. "Music! Rather different, my dear Brigit. Well—can you lend me some money for my ad?"
She was silent for a moment, and then answered in a kind of desperate impatience, "Oh, dear! Suppose you go and ask him what to do."
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Duchess, that evening, watched Brigit with dismayed surprise. What had happened to the girl? Where were her happy expression and youthful spirits?
Théo had not changed; that they had not quarrelled was quite evident, for when she spoke to him there was something of the gentleness of the day before in her manner; but this exception excepted, the girl had reverted to her old air of silent, resentful indifference, and her strange beauty was to the watchful old woman as repellent as she had ever seen it.
Once, when Carron spoke to her, Brigit answered without turning her head, and with her narrowed eyes and slow-moving lips looked almost venomous.