He remembered it now with a strong rush of anger for his folly in attempting to do what he had tried to do, and yet, as he glanced at the girl who was flitting about preparing the tea table, and making everything ready for her mother’s return, he felt a touch of real pleasure mingle in with the jarred feelings. For if that bygone day had brought him in contact with Christina and her worthless nature, as Valentine uncompromisingly considered it, it had also been the means of introducing him to this other girl, who, for some occult reason, had found an abiding place in his thoughts.
As Polly chatted on gayly enough, the man watching her arrived at two or three conclusions about her.
He was not a woman with a woman’s keen instinct to help him, yet it came to Val most surely that there was a sore point in connection with Hubert Kestridge and his wife even as there was about Christina, Lady Wentworth.
Each time the name of Kestridge was spoken, Polly seemed to wince, and Valentine all at once determined to say nothing of that letter from Italy which had reached him the previous day.
He was not a particularly diplomatic person, as has been seen, yet his tenderness and large sympathies gave him a certain tact that stood him in good stead now.
He determined, therefore, to work what help he could give the lad Harold in a roundabout sort of way.
He enticed Polly to tell him all about her brother, and the girl was nothing loath to speak of Harold’s talent and many other endearing qualities.
“It makes me a little sad,” she owned, wistfully, “to realize that Harold is not to have the education our poor father intended him to have. Of course, I am his sister, and so I suppose I am prejudiced, but I call him ever so clever,” and then Polly sighed; “only he is not strong.”
“Growing boys seldom are,” Valentine said in the most matter-of-fact way.
He had caught sight of Polly’s eyes, and he saw they were full of tears, but just at this moment Mrs. Pennington and her boy arrived, and the little private conversation came to an end.