“I don’t believe you have ever done anything wrong, Norah,” said Rex, in a low, husky voice. There was a long silence, then—“My father will feel inclined to kill me when he hears about this!” he added shortly.
Norah started. “But need we tell them? I don’t think it would be wrong to say nothing about it. We are safe, and it has taught us to be more careful in future. It would only upset everyone, and make them miserable, if they knew we had been in such danger. I’ll slip quietly to my room, and it shall be a secret between us, Rex—you and I.”
Rex looked at her in silence, with his big, keen eyes. “You are the best little soul in the world, Norah,” he said. “I wish I were like you!”
Chapter Eleven.
The New Mary.
Norah was white and subdued for the rest of the evening, but as she was a stranger to three out of the four members of the household, this unusual fact attracted little attention. It was taken for granted that, like Edna, she was exhausted by the excitement of the first music lesson, and both girls were despatched to bed at an early hour.
Next morning Rex hied off to the Vicarage, to work for a couple of hours with the vicar, a scholarly recluse, with whom he was reading for college, and the girls were left alone to pursue their acquaintance. Conversation naturally turned on Rex, but Edna told the story of his discontent from a fresh point of view.
“Father doesn’t ask him to choose a profession if he would rather go into business, but he thinks every man is the better for a college education, and that Rex is too young to decide for himself until he is twenty-one. If he works till then, he can do what he likes in the future. But Rex is so obstinate; he thinks he is a man because he is nearly eighteen, and wants to have his own way at once. It makes father so angry.”