Meanwhile she was made constantly aware that her hostess remembered her. Once, as Marcella passed her, after introducing someone to her, Letty felt a hand gently laid on her shoulder and then withdrawn. Strange waves of emotion ran through the girl's senses. When would George be here? About seven, she thought, when they would all have gone up to dress. He would have arrived from Wildheim in the morning, and was to spend the day doing business in town.
CHAPTER XXII
Letty was lying on a sofa in her bedroom. Her maid was to come to her shortly, and she was impatiently listening to every sound that approached or passed her door. The great clock in the distant hall struck seven, and it seemed to her intolerably long before she heard movements in the passage, and then Maxwell's voice outside.
"Here is your room, Sir George. I hope you don't mind a few ghosts! It is one of the oldest bits of the house."
Letty sprang up. She heard the shutting of the passage door, then immediately afterwards the door from the dressing-room opened, and George came through.
"Well!" she said, staring at him, her face flushing; "surely you are very late?"
He came up to her, and put his arms round her, while she stood passive.
"Not so very," he said, and she could hear that his voice was unsteady.
"How are you? Give me a kiss, little woman—be a little glad to see me!"
He looked down upon her wistfully. On the journey he had been conscious of great weariness of mind and body, a longing to escape from struggle, to give and receive the balm of kind looks and soft words. He had come back full of repentance towards her, if she had only known, full too of a natural young longing for peace and good times.
She let him kiss her, but as he stooped to her it suddenly struck her that she had never seen him look so white and worn. Still; after all this holiday-making! Why? For love of a woman who never gave him a thought, except of pity. Bitterness possessed her. She turned away indifferently.
"Well, you'll only just have time to dress. Is someone unpacking for you?"