Ruth did not attempt to close it. She felt guilty, she hardly knew of what. After a moment's pause she said:
"I plead guilty. I was curious. I saw these were your own particular shelves; but I never can resist looking at the books people read."
"Will you be pleased to remember in future that, in contemplating my character, Miss Deyncourt—a subject not unworthy of your attention—you are on private property. You are requested to keep on the gravel paths, and to look at the grounds I am disposed to show you. If, as is very possible, admiration seizes you, you are at liberty to express it. But there must be no going round to the back premises, no prying into corners, no trespassing where I have written up, 'No road.'"
Ruth smiled, and there was a gleam in her eyes which Charles well knew heralded a retort, when suddenly through the half-open door a silken rustle came, and Lady Hope-Acton slowly entered the room, as if about to pass through it on her way to the hall.
Now, kneeling is by no means an attitude to be despised. In church, or in the moment of presentation to majesty, it is appropriate, even essential; but it is dependent, like most things, upon circumstances and environment. No attitude, for instance, could be more suitable and natural to any one wishing to read the page on which a sitting fellow-creature was engaged. Charles had found it so. But, as Lady Hope-Acton sailed into the room, he felt that, however conducive to study, it was not the attitude in which he would at that moment have chosen to be found. Ruth felt the same. It had seemed so natural a moment before, it was so hideously suggestive now.
Perhaps Lady Hope-Acton would pass on through the other door, so widely, so invitingly open. Neither stirred, in the hope that she might do so. But in the centre of the room she stopped and sighed—the slow, crackling sigh of a stout woman in a too well-fitting silk gown.
Charles suddenly felt as if his muddy boots and cords were trying to catch her eye, as if every book on the shelves were calling to her to look up.
For a second Ruth and Charles gazed down upon the top of Lady Hope-Acton's head, the bald place on which showed dimly through her semi-transparent cap. She moved slightly, as if to go; but no, another step was drawing near. In another moment Lady Grace came in through the opposite door in her riding-habit.
Ruth felt that it was now or never for a warning cough; but, as she glanced at Charles kneeling beside her, she could not give it. Surely they would pass out in another second. The thought of the two pairs of eyes which would be raised, and the expression in them was intolerable.
"Grace," said Lady Hope-Acton, with dreadful distinctness, advancing to meet her daughter, "has he spoken?"