CHAPTER VIII. THE STRANGE FACE IN THE EAST WING.
Chris thought this incident very strange. She pondered it in her mind, and mentioned it to her mother in a manner which showed that she considered it a suspicious one.
Mrs. Abercarne looked at the matter differently. There were a thousand reasons, any one of which might be the right one in this case, why a gentleman should choose to transfer some object in his possession from one place of safe keeping to another. It might be the portrait of an old friend——
“But he said he didn’t know who it was,” objected Chris.
“Well, it may be a particularly good painting, so that he may wish to add it to the collection of miniatures upstairs which he spoke of,” said Mrs. Abercarne, who now showed herself ready at all times to take Mr. Bradfield’s part. “Or perhaps,” she hazarded, with a rapid glance at the girl’s face, “he did not quite like your taking such a strong interest in the portrait of another gentleman.”
“Indeed, I don’t see how that could concern him,” returned Chris, coldly.
The young girl quite understood these allusions on her mother’s part to Mr. Bradfield’s evident admiration. But she would not allow the subject to be mentioned; and her mother, who, poor lady, was not unnaturally delighted at the prospect she thought she discerned of marrying her pretty daughter well, thought it wiser not to precipitate matters.
For already the bird seemed to have taken fright, and grown shy, as if seeing or suspecting a snare. Mr. Bradfield was always trying to waylay Chris for the sake of a few moments’ talk with her, and always failing in the attempt. At last he complained to Mrs. Abercarne in terms which almost amounted to a declaration of the state of his feelings with regard to her.
“She is young and wilful,” answered the mother, who thought that this shyness on the girl’s part was likely to give a wholesome stimulus to the gentleman’s attachment. “I don’t think she takes any serious views of life at present. Better not to speak to her just yet on any matter more momentous than concerts and dances.”