"I am afraid," she said, "you get up and go out so early on our account—I mean so that you may devote all the rest of the day to us."
"Oh no," Adrian returned, still smiling. "It is an old habit, one of my very few good habits, that of early rising. You see, I am quite a busy man in my own small way, what with my Review, my friends, my literary work—"
"I realize that, and so I am very much distressed at the demands which we are making upon your valuable time. I cannot justify or excuse it to myself. I do not think it was proper that papa should have appointed you as my coexecutor without consulting you and asking your permission first."
She spoke with a suppressed violence of feeling which caused Adrian to gulp down his complete agreement in these sentiments, and reply in soothing tones:
"But, dear cousin, surely at this time of day it is superfluous to vex yourself about that! Believe me, you are too scrupulous, too considerate. I assure you, as I have so often assured you before, that I am touched by the confidence your father showed me in thus temporarily intrusting not only his affairs, but yourself and your sister, to my care. My sole desire is worthily to fulfil that trust. To do so constitutes, in as far as my time is concerned, an all-sufficient reward. And then, after all," he added, gaily, "ten days, a fortnight even, should I have to go north to Leeds for a brief visit, will see all imperative business through and so put a term to our joint labors."
There he paused, looking discreetly aside as he unbuttoned his overcoat, since he was aware that the gladness of coming freedom might declare itself with unflattering distinctness. For in imagination he sprinted once again, three steps at a time, up the three flights of stairs to the top story of the tall, gray house overlooking the Quai Malaquais, while high expectation, at once delicious and disturbing, circulated through every fiber of his being. How adorable it would be—how richly, poignantly enchanting! But just then, though by no means easily open to hypnotic or mesmeric influences, he became conscious that Joanna Smyrthwaite's eyes—those tenacious, prominent, faded-blue eyes, with red-rimmed lids to them, which, to his seeing, so perpetually gave away the inward tempest of feeling to which the compressed lips refused utterance—were fixed upon him with an extraordinary intensity of questioning scrutiny. For a moment the young man felt frankly embarrassed, uncertain how to comport himself. For he had no answer whatever to give to that questioning scrutiny. He suddenly grew wary, fearing demand might create supply—of a fraudulent sort—courtesy betraying him into return glances dishonestly sympathetic in character. But, to his relief, the sound of an opening door, followed by that of two chattering feminine voices—high-pitched, unmusical in tone, one indeed peevish and complaining—coming from the gallery above created a diversion. He felt, rather than saw, Joanna Smyrthwaite start and look impatiently upward. Thus the awkward minute passed, resolving itself; and the situation—if the little episode deserved so high-sounding a title—was saved. Adrian backed away and slipped off his overcoat, doubling it together across his arm.
Joanna, her expression and manner agitated, descending the remaining treads of the staircase hastily, followed and stood close by him.
"That is Margaret," she said, in a hurried undertone. "Marion Chase is with her as usual. And Mr. Challoner comes here at half-past eleven. It was his own proposition. I had a note from him early this morning. I should have been glad to put aside legal business just for to-day, but Margaret expressed unwillingness that I should refuse to receive him. There is something I feel I must explain to you, Cousin Adrian, before I see him. But I cannot speak of it before Margaret, still less before Marion Chase. Would it trouble you too much to come into the library with me? We should be alone. Margaret would hardly attempt to bring Marion in there, I should think."
The young man assented readily, though the invitation was not very much to his taste. Of all the rooms in this finely proportioned yet gloomy house, that distinctly masculine apartment, the library aforesaid, was, to his thinking, the most depressing. Facing north and east, its windows were darkened by the rough corrugated trunks and scraggy lower branches of a grove of Weymouth pines, spared when the rest of the site had been cleared for building. These, at close quarters and when old, are doleful trees, lifeless and unchanging in aspect, telling of sour soil and barren, unprofitable spaces. Two sides of the room were lined, to within a couple of feet of the ceiling, with mahogany bookcases, the contents of which, in Adrian's opinion, only too thoroughly harmonized in spirit with the doleful grove outside. They consisted of ranges of well-bound volumes upon such juiceless subjects as commercial and municipal law, ethics of citizenship and political economy, together with an extensive collection of pamphlets embodying the controversies of the last fifty years—social, political, ecclesiastical, and religious—neatly indexed and bound. Not only did the complete works of Adam Smith, David Hume, Dugald Stewart, and the two Mills—elder and younger—decorate the shelves; but portrait prints of these authors, along with those of certain liberal statesmen and Nonconformist divines, solidly framed and glazed, decorated the remaining wall spaces. The carpet and curtains were of a dull brown, patterned in dusky blues and greens. A writing-table of huge dimensions, fitted with many drawers; dark leather-covered chairs, various mechanical devices in the form of reading-desks and leg-rests, and an elaborate adjustable invalid couch constituted the other appointments of the room.
Following Joanna's crape-clad figure into this severely educational sanctuary, Adrian could not but think of the long joyless hours she must have spent there reading to or writing for that imperious old gentleman, the late lamented Montagu. And this thought softened his attitude toward her, reawakening sentiments of chivalrous pity. For, though rich, highly educated, and clever, had not she, poor girl, every bit as much as her cautious, halting lover, been denied the very barest fighting chance?