“I know,” she said; “I know. He is very kind. He is like your brother, is he not, Cicely?”
“We have been together all our lives,” answered Cicely evasively.
“Yes,” pursued Geneviève, hardly noticing the reply; “yes, he is like your brother. It has seemed so to me since ever I came. But you must tell him it is not true that I am unhappy here. You are very good and kind, dear Cicely, and I am very cross. I am sometimes so that the least word makes me cry, and then I wish I were at home again; but it soon passes. I love you and I love to be here, and you must forgive what I said. Kiss me, my cousin, and let us forget the foolish words.”
She held up her rosy lips, and Cicely kissed her; it would have been difficult to refuse to do so. Cicely felt a little bewildered by the girl’s changeableness, but was glad that peace should be restored, and could not but own to herself that, childish as she might be, Geneviève was very sweet.
For the rest of the evening she was sweetness itself. They went out a little after awhile and paced slowly up and down the avenue, where the shade of the trees brought night before its time. It was a mild evening, mild but not oppressive, for little gusts of breeze came every now and then sweeping round among the leaves and causing the branches to nod fantastically in the waning light. Once or twice Miss Methvyn shivered.
“Are you cold, Cicely?” asked Geneviève.
“No, not exactly, but there is something rather chilly in the air,” she replied. “Don’t you feel it? If I did not know it was only June, I should fancy it October. There is an autumn feeling about, though it is mild too.”
“I did not feel it so,” said Geneviève. Then suddenly a thought struck her. “I wonder, Cicely, why Mr. Fawcett went away in so great a hurry this?” she exclaimed.
“Did he?” said Cicely absently. “I thought he was a long time with papa.”
“Oh! yes; he was till five o’clock in Colonel Methvyn’s room,” said Geneviève. “It was after that I mean that he must have been in a hurry. I was thinking if he had stayed to dinner, we might have walked part of the way home with him it is such a pretty way, by the mill.”