"What an ass you are, Wilfred," Rupert answered, with a lazy laugh. "Is it likely that even our dear and impulsive Cicely, would hand Baba over to the care of your adventuress type of woman? No; the only time I saw her, the girl seemed a most harmless, quiet little individual."
"You've seen her?"
"Yes; I saw her in the nursery at Eaton Square, making friends with Baba, but she made no impression upon me; she was just quite an ordinary-looking girl."
"Oh! la, la! then you may go alone to call on her at Graystone, and see that she is performing the whole duty of the nurse. The ordinary-looking girl makes no appeal to me."
His own, and Wilfred's idle words, flashed back into Rupert's mind now, as, across Baba's tangle of golden curls, his eyes looked down into the eyes uplifted to his—eyes to which the dancing firelight gave an oddly elusive effect. What colour were they? he wondered—grey, hazel, or green—deep soft green with great black pupils, and sweeping dark lashes, that curled upwards in a deliciously fascinating way. There was something child-like and appealing about those sweet eyes, something of the eternal child indeed, about her whole face, from the unclouded brow on which the dusky hair fell in soft tendrils and curls, to the half-parted lips, on which the smile over Baba's latest sally of wit, still lingered. There was nothing of the adventuress type about this girl, that was very certain, was his first thought; his second, that the uplifted face was in some way familiar to him, that quite lately he had seen it uplifted in precisely this way; and thirdly, he remembered how and when they had met.
"Why," he exclaimed, "how oblivious you must have thought me the other day! Surely you are the young lady to whom my cousin and I gave a lift in the car?"
A vivid blush flooded Christina's face with colour, her eyes wavered under his glance.
"Yes, it was I who stopped your car, and I thought afterwards how dreadfully audacious and impatient I must have seemed. But I was anxious to get quickly to the doctor, that——"
"Not for this young person, was it?" Rupert interrupted, looking down at the child in his arms "she doesn't wear an invalid appearance."
"Oh! no, no, not for her." Christina spoke hurriedly, remembering the secrecy that had been enjoined upon her by the lady of the lonely house, and anxious to lead the conversation away as soon as possible from her visit to the doctor. But Rupert, having deposited Baba in her chair, seated himself beside her, and helped himself to a slice of Mrs. Nairne's hot buttered toast, continuing to talk placidly of the very subject the girl most desired to avoid.