Drawing a deep breath, she shrinks within the shelter of a friendly laurel until he is close to her; then, stepping from her hiding-place, she advances toward him.
As she does so, as she meets him face to face, all her nervousness, all her inward trembling, vanishes, and she declares to herself that victory shall lie with her.
He has grown decidedly thinner. Around his beautiful mouth a line of sadness has fallen, not to be concealed even by his drooping moustache. He looks five years older. His blue eyes, too, have lost their laughter, and are full of a settled melancholy. Altogether, he presents such an appearance as should make the woman who loves him rejoice, provided she knows the cause.
When he sees her he stops short and grows extremely pale.
"You here!" he says, in tones of displeased surprise. "I understood from Mrs. Massereene you were at Herst. Had I known the truth, I should not have come."
"I knew that; and the lie was mine,—not Letitia's. I made her write it because I was determined to see you again. How do you do, Teddy?" says Miss Massereene, coming up to him, smiling saucily, although a little tremulously. "Will you not even shake hands with me?"
He takes her hand, presses it coldly, and drops it again almost instantly.
"I am glad to see you looking so well," he says, gravely, perhaps reproachfully.
"I am sorry to see you looking so ill," replies she, softly, and then begins to wonder what on earth she shall say next.
Mr. Luttrell, with his cane, takes the heads off two unoffending crocuses that, most unwisely, have started up within his reach. He is the gentlest-natured fellow alive, but he feels a vicious pleasure in the decapitation of those yellow, harmless flowers. His eyes are on the ground. He is evidently bent on silence. On such occasions what is there that can be matched in stupidity with a man?