Frances closed her eyes for a second.
"It was a hot, long walk," she said then, somewhat faintly. And she looked up and smiled at him. It was the sweetest of smiles, but Arnold, too, felt, as well as the lawyer, that there was something unnatural and sad in it.
"I don't understand it," he said to himself. "There's some trouble on her; what can it be? I'm afraid it's a private matter, for the squire's right enough. Never saw the old boy looking jollier." Aloud he said, turning to Fluff, "Would it not be a good thing to get a cup of tea for Frances? No?—now I insist. I mean you must let us wait on you, Frances; Miss Danvers and I will bring the tea out here. We absolutely forbid you to stir a step until you have taken it."
His "we" meant "I."
Frances was only too glad to lie back in the comfortable chair, and feel, if only for a few minutes, she might acknowledge him her master.
The squire, finding all this fuss about Frances wonderfully uncongenial, had retired into the house, and Arnold and Fluff served her daintily—Arnold very solicitous for comfort, and Fluff very merry, and much enjoying her present office of waiting-maid.
"I wish this tea might last forever," suddenly exclaimed Frances.
Her words were spoken with energy, and her dark eyes, as they glanced at Arnold, were full of fire.
It was not her way to speak in this fierce and spasmodic style, and the moment the little sentence dropped from her lips she blushed.
Arnold looked at her inquiringly.