Miss Biron seemed to feel some slight embarrassment at the sight of him, and received his explanation that he had come to repaint her door with an assumption of surprise. The shrewd young man decided that the young lady had repented her unconventional friendliness of the preceding evening, and was inclined to look upon his visit as an intrusion. His manner, therefore, was studiously distant and respectful as he raised his cap from his head, gave the reason for his coming, and then said that he had brought a note for her from Mr. Christian Cornthwaite.
Claire blushed as she took it. Bram, who had brought his paint can and his brush, took off his coat, and began his task in silence, with just a sidelong look at the girl as she began to read the note.
At that moment the inner door of the kitchen opened, and Mr. Biron entered with a jaunty step, arranging a rosebud in his button-hole in quite a light comedy manner. Catching sight at once of Bram at work on the door, that young man observed that a slight frown crossed his face. After a momentary pause in his walk, he came on, however, as gayly as ever, and peeping over his daughter’s shoulder read the few words the note contained, and said at once—
“Well, you must go, dear; you must go.”
Claire blushed hotly, and crumpled up the note.
“I—I don’t want to. I would rather not,” said she in a low voice.
“Oh, but that’s nonsense,” retorted he good-humoredly. “Chris is a good fellow, a capital fellow. Put on your hat, and don’t be a goose. I’ll see that the young man at the door has his beer.”
Bram heard this, and his face tingled, but he said nothing. He perceived, indeed, from a certain somewhat feminine spitefulness in Mr. Biron’s tone, that the words were said with the intention of annoying him.
Claire appeared to hesitate a moment, then quickly making up her mind she said—“All right, father, I’ll go,” and disappeared through the inner door.
Theodore, without any remark to Bram, followed her.