“Take care of thyself if thou lovest me.”
And as he sat thinking, the study door opened and Angela quietly entered.
CHAPTER II
ANGELA
THE study by that time was dark, and Angela, who had learned not to disturb Lyddon in his reveries, came softly and seated herself without speaking at the table in the middle of the room. Neither did Lyddon speak, but he recognized in himself the feeling of subtle pleasure which Angela’s nearness always gave him. It was as if the fragrance of spring had been wafted toward him, something silent, intangible, but deliciously sweet. He could catch from the corner in which he sat the outline of her slender, supple figure in a pearl-gray gown, her graceful head leaning upon her clasped hands.
The two sat silent in the dusky twilight of the firelit room for ten minutes. Then Angela with a peculiar, noiseless grace moved to the fireplace and, thrusting a wisp of paper into the bed of coals, lighted the two candles in tall, brass candlesticks which sat upon the study table and opening a book before her began to read. She had naturally a good omnivorous appetite for books, an appetite which Lyddon had sedulously cultivated. At that moment she was demurely studying a page of Adam Smith which happened to be the book before her. The two candles only half-illumined the low-ceiled, shadow-haunted room and appeared like two glowing disks amidst the gloom, but their yellow light fell full upon Angela. Lyddon, who never wearied of examining her, concluded it was doubtful whether she would ever be classed as a beauty. She was too thin, too slight, too immature as yet to be called beautiful or anything approaching it, but one day she might have much beauty. Her features were charming, though irregular, and her coloring, generally pale, was sometimes vivid. Her hair, of a rich bronze with glints of gold in it, was beautiful and abundant; and her dark lashes and delicately arched eyebrows were extremely pretty. But except those and her exquisite grace of movement and sweetness of voice, neither Lyddon nor anyone else could exactly tabulate her beauty. Her eyes were not large, but were full of expression and continually changing color. When she was pleased they were bright and light; when she was angry or thoughtful they became almost black.
The book remained open before her, but she was not turning the leaves, and Lyddon, knowing quite well of what she was thinking, said, presently: “I wonder what makes them so late?” Angela, knowing that he meant Neville and Richard Tremaine, turned her head toward him and answered quickly in the sweetest voice imaginable:
“They will be here soon; I feel it all over me. I always know in advance when I am to be happy and also when I am to be wretched.”
Lyddon smiled. What did this girl of nineteen know of the wretchedness of which she spoke so glibly?
“Uncle Tremaine and Aunt Sophia thought that Neville wouldn’t be able to come at all,” Angela kept on, “but I knew he would, even if it were only for a very little time.”
“Perhaps you wrote and urged him to come,” suggested Lyddon. “You know that is the way some people receive an answer to their prayers—by working like Trojans for the thing themselves.”