She looked at him in a vague, wistful way. At times she failed to understand him. There were certain humours which came over him at odd times—hard practical humours of which the heartlessness seemed assumed and unnatural—and of these she could not detect the motive.
'I will try,' she said, 'to find out Mrs. Wylie's feelings on the subject.'
'Yes, Brenda, do!' he murmured, in a way which seemed to imply that the matter was safe in her hands.
They continued to walk up and down in silence—each wrapt in individual thought. There was a little frown on the girl's face, an almost imperceptible contraction of the eyelids, forming a slight perpendicular wrinkle which might deepen and grow permanent with sorrow or years. The clear, heavenly-blue eyes were wide open and somewhat restless, and in the whole face there was that intangible, indescribable presence which we call intellect, because we dare not call it soul.
Suddenly Trist stopped and looked down at her so persistently that she was forced to raise her eyes.
'Don't!' he said ambiguously, with his slow, deprecating smile.
She laughed in a short curious tone, and changed colour.
'Don't what?'
'Don't think about me,' he said with sudden earnestness.
For a moment an expression of pain rested in her eyes, and she opened her lips as if about to speak; but he bade her keep silence with an admonishing shake of the head, and she stood with slightly parted lips looking up into his unreadable face.