Lift her head and her ears as she would, she could not tell positively whose voices they were. Instinct, however, that instinct of suspicion we all feel within us on occasion, was enough.
A very respectable manservant of middle age, thoughtful in face, fair in complexion, with a fringe of light hair round the sides of his otherwise bald head, entered the room and presented a note to his mistress. "Who is it from?" she asked as she took it off the silver waiter. An old waiter, bearing the Andinnian crest.
"Mrs. Pole's housemaid has brought it, ma'am. She is waiting for an answer."
It was but a friendly note of invitation from a neighbour, asking Mrs. Andinnian and her two sons to go in that evening. For Karl, the second son, had come home for a two days' visit, and was just then writing letters in another room.
"Yes, we will go--if Adam has no engagement," said Mrs. Andinnian to herself, but half aloud. "Hewitt, go and tell Mr. Andinnian that I wish to speak with him."
The man went across the garden and through the wilderness of shrubs. There stood his master at an open gate, talking to a very pretty girl with bright hair and rosy cheeks.
"My mistress wishes to see you, Mr. Adam."
Adam Andinnian turned round, a defiant expression on his haughty face, as if he did not like the interruption. He was a very fine man of some three-and-thirty years, tall and broad-shouldered, with his mother's cast of proud, handsome features, her fresh complexion, and her black hair. His eyes were dark grey; deeply set in the head, and rarely beautiful. His teeth also were remarkably good; white, even, and prominent, and he showed them very much.
"Tell my mother I'll come directly, Hewitt."
Hewitt went back with the message. The young lady who had turned to one of her own flower-beds, for the gardens joined, was bending over some budding tulips.