“Good-morning, uncle, dear,” she said, holding out her hand.
“‘Uncle,’ and always ‘uncle,’” he sighed, in a tone of reproach, as he held her hand and sought to meet her eyes. “I am not your uncle. I do not like the name. I have told you so, my dear. And yet it is ‘uncle,’ and always ‘uncle.’”
“Yes, it is, and must be ‘uncle,’ and always ‘uncle,’ and nothing but ‘uncle,’ from me to you, uncle, dear,” she answered, persistently, though in a trembling tone, keeping her eyes fixed upon the floor lest they should encounter his gaze—for the gaze of those large, dark, dreamy, mournful orbs was beginning to have a terror and fascination of the serpent or the devil for her.
“You have not forgiven me yet, Gloria,” he answered.
“Indeed I have,” she replied, moving quickly to her place at the head of the table and touching the call-bell to bring in Laban with the coffee pot.
Breakfast passed off very much as the dinner of the preceding day had done, in mutual constraint.
When it was over, and both left the table, Colonel de Crespigney passed into the library, where he usually spent his mornings.
It had been Gloria’s unvarying custom to follow him thither with her needlework and sit sewing in her little low chair, while he read or wrote at the table.
Now, however, she could not bear to re-enter the place of the previous day’s terror. She took her garden hat and shawl from the hall rack and put them on.
“Where are you going, my dear?” inquired the colonel.