Could it be that he had seen her only yesterday? Or was his visual memory so fickle that he had forgotten what she was like? She was so different from what he had been fancying her!
The fact was merely this—that she had been writing to an old friend, and her manner for the time, as well as her expression, was affected by her mental proximity to that friend;—so plastic—so fluent even—was her whole nature. Indeed Alec was not long in finding out that one of her witcheries was, that she was never the same. But on this the first occasion, the alteration in her bewildered him.
"I am glad to find your uncle better," he said.
"Yes.—You have seen him, then?"
"Yes. I was very busy in the dissecting-room, till—"
He stopped; for he saw her shudder.
"I beg your pardon," he hastened to substitute.—"We are so used to those things, that—"
"Don't say a word more about it, please," she said hastily. Then, in a vague kind of way—"Won't you sit down?"
"No, thank you. I must go home," answered Alec, feeling that she did not want him. "Good night," he added, advancing a step.
"Good night, Mr Forbes," she returned in the same vague manner, and without extending her hand.