"Well?"
She put her hand to her mouth with an irresolute gesture, softly touching her red lips. "Oh—nothing!" she said.
"Nothing?" he questioned. But at that moment there was a call. "Barbara! Barbara! are you stopping to write those books?"
She turned swiftly, caught them up and was gone, sending an answering cry of "Coming, uncle—coming!" before her.
Reynold lingered a little before he followed her, to wonder what that something was that was nothing.
When he went in he found Mr. Hayes and Barbara both industriously occupied with their reading, after the fashion of a quiet Sunday in the country. He took up the first volume that came to hand, threw himself into a chair, and remained for a considerable time frowning and musing over the unread page. Mr. Hayes turned his pages with wearisome regularity, but after a while Barbara laid her Good Words on her lap and gazed fixedly at the window, where little could be seen but the reflection of the lamp in the outer darkness. The silence of the room seeming to have become accustomed to this change of attitude, the slightest possible movement of her head brought Reynold within range. He moved, and she was looking at the window, from which she turned quite naturally, and met his glance. Her fingers were playing restlessly with her little gold cross, and Harding said, "Your talisman!"
No word had been spoken for so long that the brief utterance came with a kind of startling distinctness.
"My talisman still, thanks to you," Barbara replied.