'Well, I hardly think that's necessary. It's a great pity she should miss Vallombrosa. I hoped I might settle her and Aunt Pattie there by about the middle of June.'
Eleanor made so sudden a movement that her book fell to the ground.
'You are going to Vallombrosa? I thought you were due at home, the beginning of June?'
'That was when I thought the book was coming out before the end of the month. But now—
'Now that it isn't coming out at all, you feel there's no hurry?'
Manisty looked annoyed.
'I don't think that's a fair shot. Of course the book's coming out! But if it isn't June, it must be October. So there's no hurry.'
The little cold laugh with which Eleanor had spoken her last words subsided. But she gave him no sign of assent. He pulled a stalk of grass, and nibbled at it uncomfortably.
'You think I'm a person easily discouraged?' he said presently.
'You take advice so oddly,' she said, smiling; 'sometimes so ill—sometimes so desperately well.'