A little flash, as of pleased surprise, passed over her white face. Then she said, under her breath:
"So you have come back. I didn't think you would. I—I am sorry you did."
Max looked rather blank. The girl's attraction for him had increased during the short period he had been absent from her. He had had time to think over his feelings, to find his interest stimulated by the process. Imagination, which does so much for a woman with a man, and for a man with a woman, had begun to have play. He had come back determined to find out more about the girl, to probe to the bottom of the mystery in which, perhaps, consisted so much of the charm she had for him.
Even now, upon her entrance, the first sight of her face had made his heart leap up.
There was a pause when she finished speaking. Max, who was usually fluent enough with her sex, hesitated, stammered and at last said:
"You are sorry I came back? Yet you seemed anxious enough to make me promise to come back!"
He observed that a great change had come over her. Instead of being nerveless and lifeless, as he had left her, with dull eyes and weak, helpless limbs, she was now agitated, excited; she glanced nervously about her while he spoke, and tapped the finger-tips of one hand restlessly with those of the other as she listened.
"I know," she replied, rapidly, "I know I was. But—Granny has come back. She came in while you were gone."
Max glanced at the wall, where he had fancied he saw the pair of watching eyes.
"Oh," said he, "that explains what I saw, perhaps. Where is your grandmother?"