"You're sleeping again," said he.
"Do you know why? Because my mind's at rest. I've decided to accept your offer."
"And my terms?" said he, apparently not interested by her announcement.
"And your terms," assented she. "You are free to stop whenever the whim strikes you; I must do exactly as you bid. What do you wish me to do?"
"Nothing at present," replied he. "I will let you know."
She was disappointed. She had assumed that something—something new and interesting, probably irritating, perhaps enraging, would occur at once. His indifference, his putting off to a future time, which his manner made seem most hazily indefinite, gave her the foolish and collapsing sense of having broken through an open door.
VII
THE first of September they went up to town. Stanley left at once for his annual shooting trip; Donald Keith disappeared, saying—as was his habit—neither what he was about nor when he would be seen again. Mrs. Brindley summoned her pupils and her musical friends. Mildred resumed the lessons with Jennings. There was no doubt about it, she had astonishingly improved during the summer. There had come—or, rather, had come back—into her voice the birdlike quality, free, joyous, spontaneous, that had not been there since her father's death and the family's downfall. She was glad that her arrangement with Donald Keith was of such a nature that she was really not bound to go on with it—if he should ever come back and remind her of what she had said. Now that Jennings was enthusiastic—giving just and deserved praise, as her own ear and Mrs. Brindley assured her, she was angry at herself for having tolerated Keith's frankness, his insolence, his insulting and contemptuous denials of her ability. She was impatient to see him, that she might put him down. She said to Jennings:
"You think I can make a career?"