"Are we alone? Is anyone coming from outside?"
"Only a few 'locals,' just to celebrate the occasion. I know the clergyman's wife's coming, for she told me she had been copying one of my frocks, and wanted me to tell her what I thought."
George laughed.
"Poor lady!"
"I don't think I shall be nice to her," said Letty, playing with a flower on the mantelpiece. "Dowdy people make me feel wicked. Well, I must dress."
It was now his turn to lay a detaining hand.
"Are you sorry?" he said, bending over to her. His bright grey eyes had shaken off fatigue.
"For what? Because you got in?"
Her face overflowed with laughter. He let her go. She linked her arm in that of the daughter of the house—Miss Florence Watton—who was crossing the hall at the moment, and the two went upstairs together, she throwing back one triumphant glance at him from the landing.
George stood watching them till they disappeared. His expression was neither soft nor angry. There was in it a mocking self-possession which showed that he too had been playing a part—mingled, perhaps, with a certain perplexity.