At the dinner Lady Wynde was herself again, bright and fascinating, only now and then, in some pause of the conversation, there came again into her eyes that horrified stare which they had worn up stairs, and which testified how her soul shrank from the awful crime she contemplated.
After dinner the pair returned to the drawing-room. Sir Harold drew a sofa toward the corner of the hearth and sat down upon it, calling his wife to him. She obeyed, taking a seat beside him. Her face was all brightness at this moment, and Sir Harold forgot his late anxieties about her.
“I believe I am the happiest man in the world, Octavia,” he said thoughtfully, caressing one of her jewelled hands he had lifted from her knee, “but my cup of joy lacks a drop or two of sweetness still. You are all the world to me, my wife, and yet I want something more.”
“What is it you want, Harold?”
“I have been thinking about my children,” said the baronet. “It is over a month since I heard from George, and he does not intend to leave India this year, although I have urged him to sell his commission and come home. The boy has a passion for a military life, and he went out to India against my better judgment. I cannot have George home again this year, but there is Neva near me. I long to see her, Octavia.”
“You are the most devoted of fathers,” laughed Lady Wynde. “We have been married but little over a year, and yet you have made two trips alone to Paris to see Neva. She must be a very paragon of daughters to cause her father to forget his bride.”
Sir Harold’s fair cheeks flushed a little.
“You forget,” he said, “that Neva was my especial charge from the hour of her mother’s death till I sent her to that Paris school. My love for you, Octavia, cannot lessen my love for her. I begin to think that I have done wrong in not bringing you two together before. I had a most pathetic letter from Neva before the holidays, begging to be allowed to come home, but at your request, Octavia, I denied her natural entreaty and compelled her to remain at her school. Even Madame [Da-Caret], the head of the establishment, thought it singular that Miss Wynde should, alone of all the English pupils, spend her holidays at the deserted institution. And now to-day I received a letter from Neva asking if she was to come home for the Easter holidays. I am afraid I have not rightly treated my motherless child, Octavia. She has never seen you; never been at home since you became mistress here. I fear that the poor child will think her exile due to your influence, to speak frankly, dear, and that she will regard you with dislike and bitterness, instead of the trust and confidence I want her to feel in you. You are both so dear to me that I shall be unhappy if you do not love each other.”
“There is time enough to form the acquaintance after Neva leaves school,” said Lady Wynde. “She is but a child yet.”
“She is seventeen years old, Octavia. I have decided to have her home at Easter, and I hope you will take some pains to win her trust and affection. She will meet you half-way, dear.”