'Well—what?'
'I should not tell you, but for his entreaty. He thinks she cares less for him than for you.'
'Nonsense! He may put that out of his head, poor boy.'
The colour mounted in his bloodless cheek, but the decision of the tone satisfied Geraldine.
At that moment, however, the door was gently opened, and Stella, her cheeks more deeply tinted than their wont, quietly said, 'Brother, Captain Audley is here. He wants to know whether you are well enough to see him.'
Cherry divined what was coming; but Felix exclaimed, 'Captain Audley! How kind! Tell him I am quite ready.—But you had better make yourself scarce, Cherry; the poor man has met one lady already, and I can't answer for the consequences of his falling in with another.'
There he was interrupted by her contention with his instinctive impulse to rise and give her his arm—a token of improvement; for whereas yesterday he had apologised whenever she crossed the room without him, to-day he began getting up, but was checked by the twinge betrayed by lips and brow, and as Lord Gerald had been fortunately left ashore, Cherry professed to have her most constant supporter.
Another moment, and Captain Audley crossed her, and bowed to her, as she repaired to the drawing-room, from the window of which she saw the two young things, not idling—Stella never dawdled—but cutting flowers, and filling the whole stock of vases which she had brought out, to renew the cheerfulness of the house for its convalescent master.
The sight was pretty, but Cherry wondered whether she ought to go out and protect her little sister's peace, deciding however, that whatever harm there was must have been done already, and that accessibility was her best condition for the present; and so she sat down to begin some of the numerous letters, though their subject was most incongruous with that of her anticipations, and she wrote with divided attention, till Felix came into the room.
'Cherry,' said he, deliberately placing himself on the settee, 'Had you any notion of this?'