The passionate eyes drowning themselves in the love light of Bluebell's became thoughtful and colder. The spell was broken. Du Meresq turned away, and began talking to his sister about the expected travellers.
The reaction was painful as the killing of a nerve, and the cause of it so cruel, that she made no attempt to endure it. A swift glance round showed her she was unobserved, and springing to the door, she fled from the room, to weep out her blue eyes in senseless, hopeless repining.
No one noticed her exit but Lascelles, who, going through his social devoirs with mechanical propriety, had his powers of observation quite disengaged.
"I can't make the girl out," he soliloquized. "She is aggravatingly pretty, plays very uncanny, unpleasant music, and looks at me with about as much interest as if I had called to tune the piano or regulate the clocks. I wonder if she is expected to go to bed at ten! I fancy there is a very stringent code of rules for a companion. She was sitting in such a nice inviting corner, to. Du Meresq seemed sloping off for a spoon; but when he doubled back, and I was just ready to bear down, she shot out of the room, like Cinderella when she had 'exceeded her pass.'"
The two friends looked in next morning. They were going in a yacht as far as the Indian village, and Bertie said if the Colonel and Cecil would be likely to have arrived, he would come in on his way back. There was some discussion about trains and connecting boats, and a guide-book was fruitlessly hunted for.
"Oh, I recollect," said Mrs. Rolleston, suddenly; "I put it in the table-drawer in the next room,—right-hand drawer, Bertie," as he went to fetch it. He found a little more than he sought, for there, alone, with every appearance of being caught, was Bluebell. Du Meresq would, perhaps, have avoided the contretemps, had he been prepared for it. As it was he advanced towards her, and, clasping her in his arms, kissed the cheek from which every ray of colour had vanished, and said, tenderly,—"What has turned my Bluebell into a Lily?"
"I have heard something. I want to ask you a question," came out almost mechanically.
Du Meresq had not expected so serious an answer to a banalite, and his countenance altered.
"Why are you so grave, Bluebell? You take life too seriously, my child. A young beauty like you need never be unhappy—only make other people so."
But his theories were no longer taken as gospel.