“No,” said Agatha, gently removing Mrs. Thornycrofts hand from the bell; “Mr. Harper will doubtless tell me all that is necessary. He is perfectly able to conduct his own affairs.”
It was speech implying more indifference than she really felt, for this mysterious interview did not quite please her. She tried vainly to go on talking with Mrs. Thornycroft, and actually started when she heard the carriage drive off, and Nathanael come up-stairs.
His countenance was a good deal troubled, but he did not give the slightest explanation—not even when Mrs. Thornycroft joked him about his supposed “business.”
“With a lady, too! Not, I hope, a young lady?”
“What did you say?” he asked, absently, his eyes fixed afar off on Agatha.
“I hope your visitor in the carriage was not a young lady?”
“No.” The answer was in a tone that put an end to any more jesting.
Nathanael sat down, and tried to take up the thread of politics just dropped with Mr. Thornycroft, but only for a few minutes. Then, stealing round by Miss Bowen's side, he whispered:
“I want to speak to you: would you mind coming home soon?”
“At once, if you wish it,” she answered, perceiving that something was wrong, and feeling towards him too much of kindness and too little of jealous love, to be in any way displeased at his strange behaviour.