As he looked, holding his pipe in one hand and his pouch in the other, more with a wish to seem to be light-hearted than because he felt a longing to smoke, he was startled by a girl’s voice behind him.
It was a soft voice, a sweet voice; there was no getting away from that fact. Nevertheless it was the voice of the “hysterical, restless, fidgety” girl.
“Oh, Mr Bayre, I’m so very, very sorry!”
And turning round so quickly that he narrowly missed precipitating himself through the funnel into the water below, Bayre saw Miss Eden, her fisher cap on her head, her jacket, hastily put on, open, and her eyes brighter, more beautiful than ever.
He tried to feel that he loathed her, but it was a hard task.
CHAPTER V.
WAS IT AVERSION?
Bayre tried to look as if he did not understand what it was that the pretty girl was sorry for. But Miss Eden made short work of his pretended ignorance by saying gently,—
“I have an idea about your uncle; it is an idea formed upon his treatment of me and it seems to be consistent with his treatment of you. Although he sent for me himself from the school where I was, and wrote me a nice letter implying that he and his cousin were lonely and that they would be glad to have me, yet now I’m here he seems to avoid me as much as he can. And now, you see, when he knows that his nephew is here—for that he recognised you as his nephew I am pretty sure from something he said—why, he avoids you too.”
Bayre made an attempt at a haughty smile.
“Oh, if he thinks I mind that he won’t let me see over his collection he’s mistaken. And if he thinks I feel a greater interest in it than any outsider would do he is mistaken again. I’ve never wished to obtrude upon my uncle’s seclusion; I never have obtruded upon it. And if my curiosity as a visiting tourist is at all disappointed, I am more than compensated by the satisfaction I feel that I have always been independent of relations who seem to be devoid of the ordinary instincts of humanity.”