"He would not say so if he knew it was my wedding-dress!"
He lingered by her side, thrilled with the memory of the morning's kiss, and waiting to see if she would show him any more kindness.
Una was very glad to keep him near her, but she was full of a blushing consciousness that made her even more shy than usual. Oh, that kiss this morning!—how had she dared to be so bold?—and yet she had a passionate longing to repeat the caress.
Ida Hayes saw him lingering by his wife, and called him away to sing with her.
"That duet we used to sing, you know," she said; and her familiar tone and coquettish smile half maddened Una with pain. She drew back without a word, and let Eliot pass her, and between Sylvie and her sister he had no more chance to speak to her in the drawing-room that evening. When the music was done he was drawn into a game of chess, and as Una was ignorant of the game she was perforce left out. She sat apart and talked to some callers who had dropped in, and when they left she was only too glad to find that the evening was over and the family were separated for the night.
She went upstairs very slowly, and along the carpeted hall to her room, with a bitter sense of loneliness and disappointment, vaguely comprehending the malice of the two women who had so cleverly kept Eliot from her side all the evening.
"They hate me for my unconscious fault," she thought, miserably.
"Good-night, Una," a voice said, suddenly, almost at her side.
It was Eliot who had followed her upstairs. As she turned round her white, startled face, he drew her hand in his arm and walked with her toward her door.