The stricture about her mouth relaxed. The lips even trembled a little.
Napier couldn't imagine himself actually making love to Miss von Schwarzenberg. But he could easily imagine himself kissing that beautiful mouth of hers. So easily, indeed, that with some abruptness he turned away.
It was lucky he had.
"There she is!" Out of a fiery cloud, Madge McIntyre, on tiptoe, looked in at the window. Her schoolboy brother, behind her, was grinning. "Bobby's won his bet!" she called out derisively to the world in general. The wind of her scorn stirred in her flaming hair. Wildfire tossed it back to say to her companion, "She has been able to tear herself away from her American!"
"I've been looking for you," said Miss Greta, calmly. "Come round."
"Looking for me! Oh, my!" A final shake of the flaming mane, and as if Wildfire's fury had shriveled her; had burnt both of them up, she and Bobby vanished.
Napier made for the library, thanking his stars for the interruption. What in the name of common sense had he been about to do? To saddle himself with a flirtation—or a relation of some sort—with this foreign young woman from whom, with considerable expenditure of skill, he had kept clear for over a year!
"Mr. Napier,"—she overtook him on the library threshold—"I can't have you thinking me ungrateful. I appreciate—do believe me, how particularly kind and thoughtful—yes, chivalrous, you've shown yourself—"
With genuine amazement Napier faced her again. "What—a—I don't understand...."
"Oh, I can well believe you do these things—these generous, delicate things almost without thinking." Before he knew what she was about, she had found his hand. She was pressing it in both of hers. She held up her face—or, as it seemed, her lips. He backed away. "I shall never forget," she said in her intense whisper, "your putting me on my guard like this. And I may be able to be of use to you before we've done. Meggie, where are you, child?"