“I looked; I didn’t stare. Why, my dear, that’s what woman’s eyes were made for.”
“But—but you flung your eyes about his neck. You’ve dragged him into the house.—And I want to hide so badly.”
“I don’t.” Jehane feigned a coolness which she did not possess.
A step sounded on the stairs. Nan buried her hot cheeks in a bowl of lilac. A maid entered with a card.
Jehane looked up from reading it.
“Don’t know him, Betty. What made him come?” Betty looked her surprise. “To see master, of course. That’s what he said.”
“But you told him father was out?”
“I did, miss. But he’s all the way from London. Seems the master gave him an appointment. He told me to tell you as you’d do instead.”
“Just like father to forget. We’re going on the river; I suppose I’ll have to see him first.—No, Nan, I won’t be left by myself.—Betty, you’d better show him up.”
Nan threw herself down on the sofa, crushing herself into the cushions, as far from the door as she could get. “I wish I’d not come. Jehane, why did you do it?” Jehane seated herself near the window where the light fell across her shoulder most becomingly. She spread out her skirts decorously and picked up a book, composing her features to an expression of sweetest demureness—that it was a Greek grammar did not matter. In answer to Nan’s question she replied, “Little stupid. Nothing venture, nothing have.”