He could hardly believe his ears.
'Yes, it is your fault, I think!' he answered her, amazed at his own boldness. 'Not that I was annoyed—Heavens! what does that matter?—but that you and your mother and sister were very near an unpleasant scene. You will not take advice, Miss Leyburn,—you will take your own way in spite of what any one else can say or hint to you, and some day you will expose yourself to annoyance when there is no one near to protect you!'
'Well, if so, it won't be for want of a mentor,' she said, dropping him a mock curtsey. But her lip trembled under its smile, and her tone had not lost its gentleness.
At this moment Mr. Flaxman, who had gradually established himself as the joint leader of these musical afternoons, came forward to summon Rose to a quartette. He looked from one to the other, a little surprise penetrating through his suavity of manner.
'Am I interrupting you?'
'Not at all,' said Rose; then, turning back to Langham, she said in a hurried whisper: 'Don't say anything about the wretched man; it would make mamma nervous. He shan't come here again.'
Mr. Flaxman waited till the whisper was over, and then led her off, with a change of manner which she immediately perceived, and which lasted for the rest of the evening.
Langham went home, and sat brooding over the fire. Her voice had not been so kind, her look so womanly, for months. Had she been reading Shirley, and would she have liked him to play Louis Moore? He went into a fit of silent convulsive laughter as the idea occurred to him.
Some secret instinct made him keep away from her for a time. At last, one Friday afternoon, as he emerged from the Museum, where he had been collating the MSS. of some obscure Alexandrian, the old craving returned with added strength, and he turned involuntarily westward.