"Pray do not disturb her dreams on my account. I shall be going directly."
She sits down listlessly enough on the piano-stool facing him. Some of the first glow of brightness has faded from her face, showing him the subtle change six months has made in it. The once bright cheek is pale and clear, the dark eyes look darker still by contrast with the dark purple shadows lightly outlined beneath them. He marvels, but dares not speak of it.
"I am very glad Lady Clive is coming; I have been expecting her some time," she observes.
"I thought you were glad to see me at first," he answers, plaintively, "but now you have frozen over again."
"You took me by surprise," she replies, with dignity. "I thought you were not coming to England this winter. Lady Clive wrote me something like that."
"I did not intend to come; I knew it was wiser to stay away. 'A burnt child dreads the fire' you know. But something drew me against my will. It was like your song, Lady Vera:
"'I strove to tear thee from my heart,
The effort was in vain;
The spell was ever on my life,
And I am here again.'"
The warm color flies into her face again. The lines recall that night when she had tried to show him her heart, and the caprice of a coquette had come between them. She asks, with irrepressible pique:
"Was Miss Montgomery glad to see you?"
"Glad? Why should she be?" he asks her, wondering if that strange discord in her voice can really be pique and jealousy. Spite of Lady Vera's pride, it sounds marvelously like it.