“I beg your pardon,” he muttered, as he withdrew it as hastily as if it had been red-hot iron.
The blood rushed to Olivia’s face. The touch of Mr. Brander’s hand had not offended her; the knowledge that it had been unconscious did. And a most acute pang shot through her heart, as she realized that it was because his mind was full of another woman’s treatment that he was oblivious of her. She was jealous. In such an impulsive, energetic girl as she was, vivid feeling found vent in hasty action. Rising from her chair, and quite forgetting that her odd costume made dignity impossible, she said, very coldly, that she must go home now; her father would be anxious about her, and the rain was less violent. Even as she spoke the wind dashed a clattering shower against the window in disproof of her words. She did not notice it herself; neither, apparently, did her host. For he opened the door for her at once without any semblance of a wish to detain her, and without seeming to remark her singular apparel.
Olivia darted out of the room and up the stairs in a tempest of excited feelings which found vent in an outburst of indignation against Mrs. Warmington for leaving her so long alone with Mr. Brander. The housekeeper met her at the top of the stairs, looking herself pale and frightened.
“Why didn’t you come down?” asked Olivia, impatiently.
The old woman glanced nervously down into the hall, and answered in a soothing tone of apology,
“I did not dare, Miss Denison. I did not want my employer to find me talking to you. He would have guessed what we were talking about. We get so sharp, we people who live much alone, and he would never have forgiven me. Ever since I heard him go into the room where you were I have been walking up and down the landing in a fever. You did not tell him what we had been talking about, did you?”
“No,” answered Olivia. “He didn’t ask me.”
“Thank goodness!” said the housekeeper with such a depth of relief that the girl’s curiosity was roused.
“Why should you mind so much?” she asked. “He seems quite used to having his affairs discussed, and takes it for granted that people should think the worst of him.”
This thought moved her as she spoke, and caused her voice to tremble sympathetically. The housekeeper examined her face narrowly as she answered, with great discretion—