“I’m sure, Nouna, I don’t know what the Countess would say if she could hear you, so very particular as she is about your religious education. I am afraid I have given way to you too much; I ought never to have let Mr. Rahas fit up that room for you; it fills your head with all sorts of heathen notions, not fit for a Christian young English lady.”
“Mamma always lets me have my Indian things about me, and sends me Indian dresses, and she said herself I might have just one room without the horrid stiff European chairs and tables,” said Nouna, her voice taking a particularly sweet and tender inflection at the word “Mamma.” “But I’m going to give it up; I’ve told Mr. Rahas I don’t want it, and I’ve pulled down half the things. I will not accept gifts from one I despise.”
Springing in a moment from languor into life, she put her cup down on the table and went to the door.
“Come and see what I have done,” said she, beckoning to the young Englishman, her eyes dancing with mischief.
“Really, Nouna, I must say you are very ungrateful,” said Mrs. Ellis in despairing tones. “Mr. Rahas is always most considerate and gentlemanly, and when you said you longed for an Indian room he put it so prettily, asking whether he might fit up one large sitting-room as a show-room for his things; and then never showing anybody up into it! I really think you ought——”
But Nouna had flown out of the room, and she was haranguing only Lauriston, who had risen obediently at the young girl’s imperious gesture, but did not like to leave the elder lady alone so unceremoniously.
“She is a wilful little thing,” he said smiling.
“Oh, Mr. Lauriston, what we English people call wilfulness is lamb-like docility compared to that girl’s! She’s like an eel, like quicksilver, like a will-o’-the-wisp.”
“Or a sunbeam,” suggested he.
“Ah, of course, you’re a young man, you think her charming; and so, I believe, at the bottom of my heart, do I. But give me a good, sensible, solid, matter-of-fact English girl to look after, rather than this creature who is shaking with passion one moment, flashing her teeth, stamping her foot; and the next suffocating you, and crushing up your bonnet with kisses. As if kisses could cure the headaches her wild fits give me, or as if you could squeeze resentment out of a person, as you do water out of a sponge!”