"Why, truly," exclaimed Sir Adrian, striking his forehead, "we are a very pair of dolts! Hurry, Renny, hurry, call up Margery, and bid her bring some hot drink—tea, broth, or what she has—and blankets. Stay! first fetch my furred cloak; quick, René, every moment is precious!"
With all the agitation of a rarely excited man Sir Adrian threw more wood on the fire, hunted for a cushion to place beneath her feet, and then, seizing the cloak from René's hands, he helped her to rise, and wrapped its ample folds round her as carefully as if she were too precious almost to be touched.
Thus enveloped she sank back in the great arm-chair with a cosy, deliberate, kitten-like movement, and stretched out her feet to the blaze, laying the little shoeless one upon Jem's grey muzzle.
Adrian knelt beside her, and began gently to chafe it with both hands. And, as he knelt, silence fell between them, and the storm howled out yonder; he heard her give a little sigh—that sigh which would escape from Cécile's weariness in moments of rest, which had once been so familiar and so pathetic a sound in his ear. And once more the power of the past came over him; again he was upon the heath near Quiberon, and Cécile was sitting by him and seeking warmth by the secret fire.
"Oh, my darling," he murmured, "your poor little feet were so cold; and yet you would not let me gather them to my breast." And, stooping slowly, he kissed the pretty foot in its torn, stained stocking with a passion he had not yet shown.
The girl looked on with an odd little smile. It was a novel experience, to inspire—even vicariously—such feelings as these; and there was something not unpleasant in the sense of the power which had brought this strange handsome man prostrate before her—a maidenly tremor, too, in the sensation of those burning lips upon her feet.
He raised his eyes suddenly, with the old expectation of a rebuff; and then, at the sight of the youthful, curious face above him, betook himself to sighing too; and, laying the little foot back tenderly upon the cushion, he rose.
From between the huge fur collar which all but covered her head, the black eyes followed him as alertly as a bird's; intercepting the soft melancholy of his gaze, she smiled at him, mischievous, confident, and uncommunicative, and snuggled deeper into the fur.
Leaning against the high mantel-board, he remained silent, brooding over her; the clock ticked off solemnly the fleeting moments of the wonderful hour; and ever and anon the dog drew a long breath of comfort and stretched out his gaunt limbs more luxuriously to the heat. After a while Sir Adrian spoke.
"He who has hospitality to dispense," said he, smiling down at her mutinous grace, "should never ask whence or how the guest came to his hearth ... and yet—"