The evening passed pleasantly. Cicely liked to listen to Mr. Guildford and her brother-in-law; she liked to realise the high estimation in which each evidently held the other; she herself felt satisfied to sit in silence, without analysing her content.
“I wish Mrs. Crichton were here to sing to us,” she said towards the end of the evening to Bessie’s brother.
“Yes,” he answered, but somewhat absently. Then he went on hastily. “Miss Methvyn,” he said, “I want to ask you a favour. Will you copy out another manuscript for me. It is not a long one.”
“Certainly I will,” she replied cordially. “Send it to me whenever you like.”
“I have never got any professional copier to do them as well as you did that one at Hivèritz. And,” he continued, “I cannot manage them myself.”
He hesitated. Cicely looked up quickly. “Do you mean,” she said, “that your eyes are not any better?”
He bent his head. “Yes,” he replied, “that is what I meant to tell you. I wanted you to know.”
A little shiver ran through Cicely; she was sitting by the piano: they were out of hearing of Sir Herbert and Amiel, engrossed with cribbage, in the other drawing-room; for an instant she turned her head away; when she looked up again there were tears in her eyes,—was it the sight of them that lighted up with a strange new light the dark ones so earnestly regarding her?
“Do you mean,” she said tremulously, “that you are growing blind? Is that what you want me to know—did you mean to—to break it by asking me to copy the manuscript for you?”
He smiled—a smile so brightly happy, so full of sunshine that Cicely felt bewildered.