why should he have looked so straight at me? It was not an impertinent look, I own, but why should he have looked at me at all?"
But even to her own heart, Lady Vera will not own that her great vexation is directed against herself because she has blushed vividly crimson under that one look from Captain Lockhart's blue eyes, while her heart has beat so strangely—with annoyance, she thinks.
"I foresee that I shall hate this American soldier," she muses, "and no wonder at all when I shall be forced to see him every day. I wish now that we had not accepted Lady Clive's invitation for the London season."
[CHAPTER XI.]
The day after Lady Ford's ball dawns cheerlessly. It is cool, and the air is full of floating mists. The gentlemen determine to go out anyhow. The ladies elect to remain at home. The glowing fire in the library has more charms than the bleak, spring air.
"I am not surprised at Nella," says Captain Lockhart, leisurely buttoning his overcoat. "She was raised in America, and our ladies do not walk much. But I have been told that English ladies walk every morning, whether rain or shine. Are you false to the tradition, Lady Vera?"
The color flies into her cheek at his quizzical glance, but she will not tell him what she sees he does not know—that she has been raised in America, too.
"I suppose so," she says, a little shortly, in answer to his question.
"Suppose you come with us for a turn around the square, my dear?" suggests the earl.