Julia, somewhat in the fashion of royalty, passed on the people separating them, and grasped Bridgit’s hand, revivified by the sight of a dear and familiar face.
“Oh, I’m so glad,” she cried, indifferent to stares and the displeasure of Lady Arabella. “And they must nearly all have come. Do wait for me —”
She stopped short. She had had eyes only for Bridgit. Mechanically they had travelled on to Bridgit’s escort. The man standing with his hand outstretched was Nigel Herbert.
“He got home this afternoon,” said Mrs. Herbert, casually. “I knew you would like to see him, so I brought him on. How do, Lady Arabella? Always loved you in rubies.”
“Huh!” said Lady Arabella. She would have cut this dangerous apostate if she had been equal to the effort; but to freeze that bright powerful gaze, by no means without malice, was beyond her capacity, so she merely sniffed and advised her to seek the duke, who would be as delighted as herself to welcome Mrs. Herbert to Kingsborough House. She was of the many that blundered over sarcasm, and her soul shivered under the sweetness of Bridgit’s acceptance.
Meanwhile Julia was exclaiming to Nigel: —
“Oh, but I am glad to see you! And do go to the blue room and wait for me. It’s downstairs behind the library.”
Nigel’s face had flushed, then turned pale; the first moment of the renewal of their acquaintance had been an awkward one for him. It was with some difficulty that he had been persuaded to come at all. For many reasons he had wished never to meet her again, and had returned to England only because it was necessary to see his book through the press; a melancholy experience with the last having lost him his faith in proof-readers forever.
But when he saw the welcome in those big shining eyes, the happy smile on those young parted lips, he forgot even the subtle changes he had noted in her face, while still unobserved, and he flushed again, his heart beat rapidly. “Does she care?” he thought wildly. “Not now! Not now!—But —”
Julia was staring with almost childish delight at the frank handsome face of her first friend in England. She forgot the romantic hour at Bosquith, forgot that she had sat up all night to contrive an extinguisher for the embarrassing passion of this misguided young man, remembered only that here was a real friend; moreover, one possessing that magnet of sex lacking in Bridgit and Ishbel (such being the cross currents in her still imperfect soul), so congenial that she could have flung her arms about him at the head of the grand staircase of Kingsborough House. She had never met any one she liked half as well.