She looked up with a pretty, childish surprise.
“Consult with me! O Angus! pray don't tease me with any of your hard business matters; I never could understand them.”
“And I never for a moment imagined you could. In fact, you told me so, and therefore I have never troubled you with them, my dear,” was the reply, with just the slightest shade of satire. But its bitterness passed away the moment Sybilla jumped up and came to sit down on the hearth at his feet, in an attitude of comical attention. Thereupon he patted her on the head, gently and smilingly, for he was a fond husband still, and she was such a sweet plaything for an idle hour.
A plaything! Would that all women considered the full meaning of the term—a thing sighed for, snatched, caressed, wearied of, neglected, scorned! And would also, that every wife knew that her fate depends less on what her husband makes of her, than what she makes herself to him!
“Now, Angus, begin—I am all attention.”
He looked one moment doubtfully at Olive, who sat in her little chair at the farther end of the room, quiet, silent, and demure. She had beside her some purple plums, which she did not attempt to eat, but was playing with them, arranging them with green leaves in a thousand graceful ways, and smiling to herself when the afternoon sunlight, creeping through the dim window, rested upon them and made their rich colour richer still.
“Shall we send Olive away?” said the mother.
“No, let her stay—she is of no importance.”
The parents both looked at the child's pale, spiritual face, felt the reproach it gave, and sighed. Perhaps both father and mother would have loved her, but for a sense of shame in the latter, and the painful memory of deceit in the former.
“Sybilla,” suddenly resumed Captain Rothesay, “what I have to say is merely, how soon you can arrange to leave Stirling?”