All this time Hugh had stood poring over the ring at the window, whither he had taken it for better light, as the shadows were falling. Euphra busied herself replacing everything in the box. When all were in, she hastily shut the lid.
“Well, Mr. Sutherland?” said Mr. Arnold.
“I seem on the point of making it out, Mr. Arnold, but I certainly have not succeeded yet.”
“Confess yourself vanquished, then, and come to dinner.”
“I am very unwilling to give in, for I feel convinced that if I had leisure to copy the inscription as far as I can read it, I should, with the help of my dictionary, soon supply the rest. I am very unwilling, as well, to lose a chance of the favour of Lady Emily.”
“Yes, do read it, if you can. I too am dying to hear it,” said Euphra.
“Will you trust me with it, Mr. Arnold? I will take the greatest care of it.”
“Oh, certainly!” replied Mr. Arnold—with a little hesitation in his tone, however, of which Hugh was too eager to take any notice.
He carried it to his room immediately, and laid it beside his manuscript verses, in the hiding-place of the old escritoire. He was in the drawing-room a moment after.
There he found Euphra and the Bohemian alone.—Von Funkelstein had, in an incredibly short space of time, established himself as Hausfreund, and came and went as he pleased.—They looked as if they had been interrupted in a hurried and earnest conversation—their faces were so impassive. Yet Euphra’s wore a considerably heightened colour—a more articulate indication. She could school her features, but not her complexion.