“Well, miss,” said Stelfox, again with the contortion he meant for a smile, “Mr. Bradfield don’t understand his ways as well as I do, and he thinks books wouldn’t be safe with him. But I know when to trust him with ’em, and he’s as quiet as a lamb this afternoon.”
He was going on towards Mr. Richard’s room, when the young lady detained him, saying, in a low voice:
“Did he say, Stelfox, that he really meant to hurt me, this morning?”
Stelfox looked down at the carpet, and, for a moment, made no answer. Then he looked up, and caught a look of suspense and impatience on her face. Looking down again at once, he said, drily:
“No, miss; I don’t recollect as he told me that.”
Then he withdrew, leaving the young lady in a state of curiosity and strange excitement.
Why should she care whether this poor lunatic wanted to hurt her or not? Surely the only thing that concerned her was that it should be out of his power to do so. This was what Chris told herself. But her girlish sense of romance was tickled by the whole story—by the knowledge of the solitary and sad life this man was leading, close to his fellow-creatures, and yet shut out from them; by a remembrance of the incident of the miniature, which would have passed for his portrait, and yet which surely could not be his; above all by the man himself, with his handsome face and weary eyes.
For the next few days, neither Chris nor her mother saw much of Mr. Bradfield. But he soon forgot or forgave her indiscreet interference on Mr. Richard’s behalf, for when he did see her, he bantered her, good-humouredly, about the approaching ball, for which the invitations were being sent out. With this work, however, the ladies had little to do, except to help Mr. Bradfield’s secretary—a pale, fair, weak-eyed young man named Manners—in directing the envelopes.
While this work of sending out the invitations was still in progress, Mrs. Abercarne received a note from Mr. Bradfield, requesting that she and her daughter would do him the pleasure of breakfasting, lunching and dining with him every day, and that they would begin that very evening.
No sooner had they taken their seats at the table for the first time, than Mr. Bradfield took an open letter from his pocket, and gave it to the elder lady to read.