"I've seen all I want to see."
"Don't, Edith—"
There was a sound of feet running swiftly up the stair; the door of the adjoining room opened and shut, and a man's voice was heard singing. These sounds conveyed to Edith a frightful sense of the nearness and intimacy of the young man, and of the horror of Lucia's position. As she listened she held her cousin by her two hands in a dumb agony of entreaty.
"Horace is coming back," she whispered.
"No, Edith, it's no good. I'm going to stay till Kitty takes me."
Edith wondered whether, after all, Lucia was so very fastidious and refined; whether, indeed, in taking after her family, she did not take after the least estimable of the Hardens. There was a wild strain in them; their women had been known to do queer things, unaccountable, disagreeable, disreputable things; and Lucia was Sir Frederick's daughter. Somehow that young voice singing in the next room rubbed this impression into her. She stiffened and drew back.
"And am I to tell Horace, then, that you are happy here?"
"Yes. Tell him to come and see how happy I am."
"Very well."
As Edith opened the door to go, the voice in the next room stopped singing, and the young man became suddenly very still.