As Rupert reflected thus, staring at the fire before which he stood, he heard the door open and close behind him, and turned round in alarm, thinking that Lady Devene had come back again. But it was not Lady Devene, it was Edith already dressed for dinner in a clinging robe of some soft white material, high because of the bruise on her shoulder; a bunch of forced lilies of the valley at her breast, her rich golden hair rippling upon either side of her small head and twisted into a great knot behind, and for ornaments a close-fitting necklace of fine pearls, Lord Devene’s latest gift to her, and Rupert’s great blue scarabæus, a single and imposing touch of colour in the whiteness of her dress.
“Oh,” she said, “I came to look for Tabitha. What an awful name that is, it always sticks in my throat”—(this was a fib, because she had passed Lady Devene on the stairs, but it served her purpose)—“not to disturb your studies, my learned cousin. Don’t look so alarmed, I will go away again.”
“Oh, please don’t,” he answered. “Sit down here, do, and warm yourself. I was just—hoping to see you, and—behold! you glide into the room like, like—an angel into a dream.”
“In answer to the prayers of a saint, I suppose,” she replied. “Really, Rupert, you are growing quite poetical. Who taught you such pretty metaphors? It must have been a woman, I am sure.”
“Yes,” he answered boldly, “that is, if it is pretty—a woman called Edith.”
She coloured a little, not expecting anything so direct, but sat down in the chair staring at the fire with her beautiful dark blue eyes, and said, as though to turn the conversation:
“You asked about my shoulder, or if you didn’t, you ought to have done. Well, there is a bruise on it as big as a saucer, all here,” and with her first finger she drew a ring upon her dress.
“Confound him!” muttered Rupert.
“Him! Who? Dick or the cock-pheasant? Well, it doesn’t matter. I agree, confound both of them.”
Then there came a pause, and Rupert wrung his hands as though he were washing them or suffering pain, so that Edith could not help observing how large and red they looked in the firelight. She wished that he were wearing gloves, or would keep them in his pockets. It would make matters easier for her.