Hermon came back and reseated himself in the big arm chair.
“May I stay?” he asked, and Lorraine answered:
“Yes, do,” in the frank spirit she had told herself must be her attitude towards him.
So he sat on with an air of content, seeming to fill some place in the pretty room by right of an old comradeship, or some blood-tie, or a mutual understanding—an intangible, indefinable attitude that had sprung into being between them of itself.
Lorraine did not talk much, because she was tired, but she let the goodly sight of him, and the quiet rest of him, lull and soothe her senses for the passing moment without any disturbing questioning. Hermon likewise did not question. He liked being there, and she seemed willing for him to stay, and it seemed enough.
Once or twice lately he was conscious that he had been rather foolish with different admiring friends of the fair sex; and though he was no prig, and knew most men took kisses and caressess when offered, and would have thought it a needless throwing away of good things to refuse, he yet felt a little irritated with himself and the givers without quite knowing why.
And there was another trying incident over a girl he had met at various country-houses the previous summer, and greatly enjoyed a flirtation with. Unfortunately, she appeared not to have understood it in the light of a flirtation; and now she was writing him miserable, reproachful love-letters which had at any rate succeeded in making him wish he had been more circumspect. It soothed his ruffled feelings to be with Lorraine; and it flattered his vanity to feel that she liked him there.
They had been sitting quietly some little time when the front-door bell announced another caller, and Jean came to inquire if her mistress would see Lord Denton. Lorraine half unconsciously glanced at Hermon, and seeing an expression of disappointment on his face, said quietly. “Ask him to come tomorrow, Jean. I am very tired tonight.”
Jean went away, and presently returned with a loverly bouquet of malmaisons, and three or four new books. “His lordship will call about twelve,” she said: “and he hopes, if you feel able to go out, you will let him take you in his motor.” Then she went out, leaving them alone again.
In the pause that followed, Lorraine lay silently watching him for some minutes, wondering what was passing in his mind. Although it was only September still, the evenings were drawing in quickly, and there was little light in the room except the flickering glow of cheerful flames on the hearth. They caught the glint of his hair and shone on his face, throwing the delicate, aristocratic features with cameo-like dinstinctness on the black shadow beyond.