"Don't you think she looks bonny, sir?" she asked timidly; and was reassured when Gaunt's eyes met her own in friendly approval.
"She's more lovely than ever, Grover," he replied, to her immense gratification.
"You might carry her upstairs, sir," she suggested; "you can do it easy, can't you?"
His face changed. "No," he said decidedly, "it would startle her. You had better rouse her, please, if you want her to go with you now."
He walked away to the window, and stood in the empty space for which he had designed the statue of Love. Grover sent a keen, vexed glance after him. "Silly thing," was her disrespectful inward comment. "Why is he so plaguey shy of his own wife?"
"She'll have to get used to you, sir," she ventured after a pause, her heart in her mouth.
"It must be by degree," he answered, speaking with his back towards her.
With a shrug of her shoulders, having ventured all and more than all she dare, she bent over Virginia and aroused her. The grey cat bounded to the floor, hunching his back and stretching his legs in the heat of the glowing logs.
"Oh!" cried Virgie, springing to her feet, "I went to sleep while Mr. Gaunt was playing!"
"The greatest tribute you could pay me, since I played a lullaby," remarked her husband, strolling up.