CHAPTER XIV.
When Rees re-entered the room, he found Deborah standing at the desk examining the inkstand. It was quite dry.
“Ha! you’ve found me out,” he said, laughing. “Of course, I didn’t really want you to dictate for me. One doesn’t waste the time of a lovely girl like that. Come and sit by the fire and talk to me. We have two hours before the old lady comes back.”
He put his arm round her, drew her to the fire, made her sit in the arm-chair, from which he had risen, and placed himself on the hearth-rug at her feet.
“Now,” he said, “we can talk.”
“Yes,” answered Deborah, who had been unusually grave and silent ever since her arrival.
“I say,” he went on, looking up to examine her face with boldly critical eyes, “you’ve changed a good deal, Deborah, surely.”
“Changed!” said she. “Have I ‘gone of,’ as they say?”
“No, it isn’t that exactly; but you seem to have grown older, more staid, more demure. And—you dress differently, don’t you?”
“I’m not wearing the same things that I wore a year ago, of course. I suppose you mean that I’m countrified beside the London ladies.”