“I thought you wanted to speak to your uncle, not to me.”
“I wanted to, but I missed him; or rather, he ran away from me.”
“Ah!”
Their eyes met. And he saw that she, as well as he, thought this shyness on the part of the old recluse mysterious and suspicious.
“Why should he avoid me?”
The girl shook her head.
“Why does he avoid everybody?” she said.
The words raised Bayre’s uneasiness to fever pitch.
“I don’t like to think of your being here all by yourself with those two wretched peasants and an indifferent guardian,” he began impetuously.
He had almost said “a guilty guardian,” but had fortunately checked himself in time.