‘My dear, am I disturbing you?’
It was the well-known voice, and she sprang up.
‘Mr. Pendy, Mr. Pendy, I was very naughty! I didn’t mean it. Oh, will you bear with me again, though I don’t deserve it?’
She clung to him like a child wearied with its own naughtiness.
‘I was too hasty,’ he said; ‘I forgot how wrapped up you were in your brother, and how little attention you could spare, and then I thought that in him you had found all you wanted, and that I was only in your way.’
‘How could you? Didn’t you know better than to think that people put their brothers before their—Mr. Pendys?’
‘You seemed to wish to do so.’
‘Ah! but you should have known it was only for the sake of being coaxed!’ said Lucilla, hanging her head on one side.
‘You should have told me so.’
‘But how was I to know it?’ And she broke out into a very different kind of laughter. ‘I’m sure I thought it was all magnanimity, but it is of no use to die of one’s own magnanimity, you see.’