III
"Can I see you for a few minutes?" said M. St. Hilaire to Janet, intercepting her outside his study, a little after six o'clock next day.
She and Henriette were on their way upstairs to take off their riding clothes and to dress for dinner.
"If you two are going to chatterbox, I shall take a little nap," said Henriette, climbing drowsily up another flight of stairs to her room.
"Don't be too long, mon pere," she added, stopping half-way and looking down over the banisters. "I'm even more hungry than sleepy. Jeanette, please wake me when you come up."
Janet, from within the study, promised to do so.
Neither her voice nor her manner betrayed her apprehensiveness. Her sailor hat was set rather jauntily on her head. Her light-brown riding coat and breeches made a most becoming costume, one that showed the undulating grace of her movements to excellent advantage.
M. St. Hilaire followed her into the study and closed the door a shade too circumspectly.
His glances and the vibrant tones of his voice puzzled her considerably. She could guess the substance of what he meant to convey but not the form in which he meant to convey it.
"That man—" he began in a hesitant manner.