"Who cares?" exclaimed Frank, indignantly. "Curs are not particularly fond of lions, but——"
Stella would hear no more, but pushed him up the stairs with anxious impatience; then she went into the studio. As she neared the door she could hear Jasper Adelstone's voice. He was talking to her uncle, and something in the tone struck her as peculiar, and struck her unpleasantly.
There was a tone of familiarity, almost of covert power in it that annoyed her.
With her hand on the door she paused, and it seemed to her as if she heard him speak her name; she was not sure, and she would not wait, but with a little heightened color she opened the door and entered.
As she did so Jasper laid his hand upon the old man's arm as if to call his attention to her entrance, and the painter turned round with a start, and looking at her intently, said, with evident perplexity:
"A mere girl—a mere girl, Jasper!" and shaking his head, resumed his work.
Jasper stood a moment, a smile on his face, watching Stella from the corner of his eyes; then he said, suddenly:
"I have been admiring your roses, Miss Stella, and breaking the last commandment. I have been coveting them."
"Oh!" said Stella. "Pray take any you like, there are such numbers of them that we can spare them; can we not, uncle?"
As usual, the painter took no notice, and Jasper, in a matter-of-fact voice, said: