Bruno de Malpas was much too shrewd to suppose that his society was the magnet which had attracted the silent youth some fifty miles across the country. He sighed, but resigning himself to the inevitable, lifted his biretta as he came up to the door. Sir John rose and greeted him with evident cordiality, but he did not appear to have any thing particular to say beyond two self-evident statements—that it was a fine evening, and the honeysuckles were pretty.
“Is Beatrice within?” said the priest, feeling pretty sure that he knew.
Sir John demurely thought not. It was another half-hour before Beatrice made her appearance; and Bruno noticed that the unexpected presence of a third person evoked no expression of surprise on her part. The preparations for supper were made by Beatrice and her attendant handmaiden Sabina; and after the meal was over, Bruno discreetly went off, with the interesting observation that he was about to visit a sick person at the furthest part of the parish. Sir John had taken his seat on the extreme end of a form, and Beatrice came and sat with her embroidery at the other end. Ten minutes of profound silence intervened.
“Beatrice!”
“Yes.”
Another minute of silence.
“Beatrice!”
“Well?”
“Beatrice, what dost thou think of me?”
Beatrice coolly cut off an end of yellow silk, and threaded her needle with blue.