Luncheon was a constrained meal. Madame Cimmino maintained a non-committal silence and her nervous fluttering hands were still, but Wolvert's mood had changed to a mocking frivolity which Betty had learned to recognize as the reaction of his lawless nature from any emotional stress. Divining the girl's aversion, he directed his witticisms at her, and sought in impish perversity to compel her response. Madame Cimmino listened and watched with sombre eyes and Mrs. Atterbury flashed an ominous warning to him as they rose.
For the better part of the afternoon her employer kept Betty beside her, busied with the mending of household linen, while from the music room came strange intermittent bursts of melody, rippling, elusive, hauntingly sweet. Long moments of silence would ensue and then a thunderous crash of chords as if in very fury the musician sought to smother the softer, tenderer strain.
Betty was fascinated in spite of herself. It was as though the man's inmost soul were revealed racked with the storm of his passions yet alluring in its reckless gay abandon. A dangerous man to himself as well as to others she felt, and to her own heart there came again that thrill of fear.
When she descended the stairs at dusk, she found Wolvert standing before the great hearth in the hall staring moodily into the flames. She would have passed him with a mere nod, but he stepped forward impulsively.
"Where have you been hiding yourself since lunch? I looked for you in every corner, but you had vanished."
"For me?" Betty paused in unguarded surprise.
"For you, mademoiselle!" he mimicked her slyly. "Why will you not be kind and talk to me? I know that you disapprove of me most heartily, but you have promised to be friendly and I am bored with my own exclusive society. Come and sit here and tell me what goes on behind those grave, wise, young eyes of yours."
He pushed a chair forward coaxingly but she shook her head.
"I—I have a message for Welch—" she began.
"A plague take Welch!" Wolvert interrupted. "In all this great house, where no one ever does anything and nothing ever happens, must you alone be always busy, you who alone are worth talking to? You could tell me much, if you would."