"Ah, yes, I suppose where there's a will there's a way."
She spoke pettishly, and he only answered by coming across and holding out his hand to say good-bye. She rose and put out both hers, intending to say, as she often did when she had been cross, "Don't be angry, Maurice, I did not mean it," but the words would not come. Her courage suddenly gave way, and she cried with all her heart.
At that moment Maurice felt that she was really his; he longed unspeakably to claim her once and for ever; but his old generous self-repression was too strong for the temptation, and he shrunk from taking advantage of her grief and her sisterly affection. But a brother has some privileges, and those he had a right to. Her face was hidden, but he bent down, and drawing away her hands for a moment, kissed her with something more than a brother's warmth, pressed Mrs. Costello's hand, and hurried away.
Lucia listened intently as the sound of his footsteps, and of the gate as he passed through it, died away. Then she raised her head, and pushing back her hair, came and sat down at her mother's feet, hiding her flushed face and laughing a little half hysterical laugh.
But the laugh was a complete failure, and broke down into a sob, which was followed by a great many others, enough to have satisfied Maurice himself. At last she checked herself. "What a baby I am!" she said.
Mrs. Costello stroked back gently the soft black locks which were falling loose over her lap.
"You are a child, Lucia. I have never been in any haste for you to be otherwise."
"But I am not such a child, really, mamma. Sixteen and a half! I ought to be very nearly a woman."
Mrs. Costello sighed.
"You will be a woman soon enough, my darling, be content as to that."