Inside, the hall looked scarcely less attractive in the softly fading light of the April evening, than when Mr. Guildford had last seen it in the ruddy blaze of the great log fire. But the servant who had opened the door led him quickly across the long passage he remembered, into a smaller hall with a wide low window at one end, and doors at two sides, one of which he opened and ushered the new-comer into a sort of half-library, half-morning room. It was a pretty room, long and low, with windows down to the ground, opening into a little flower-garden, gay already with crocuses and tulips. Mr. Guildford, seeing no one, crossed the room and stood looking out at the flower-beds. But in a moment a faint rustle at the other end of the library told him that he had been mistaken in imagining it unoccupied; in the furthest off corner a lady was sitting at a little table writing. Apparently she had not heard him come in, but now she looked up suddenly and saw him. For a quarter of an instant, before he was conscious of anything but a slight figure in a grey dress, Mr. Guildford imagined the face, when it looked up, would be Miss Methvyn’s. But he was quickly undeceived. Half mechanically he had made a step or two forward, and seeing this the lady rose from her seat and did the same; then stood before him with a pretty sort of bewilderment.
“I beg your pardon,” he began, resorting to the Englishman’s invariable relief in awkward positions. “I quite thought you were Miss Methvyn. I did not see any one in the room when I came in.”
Long before he had finished the sentence, he had acknowledged to himself that the person before him was the loveliest girl he had ever seen. She was not tall; perhaps her extreme gracefulness made her appear smaller than she really was, or rather made one forget to think about her height at all. She was very simply dressed; but it was a simplicity productive of great results. No dress could have shown her figure to more advantage than the soft slate coloured stuff on the plain make of which apparently no thought had been bestowed; no colour could have better contrasted with the clear, marble-like complexion, rich dark hair and softly brilliant eyes, than this unobtrusive neutral tint; and when, looking up in response to Mr. Guildford’s slightly clumsy apology, the bright colour rose in her cheeks, the effect was complete.
“I am so sorry,” she said very timidly. “I did not know that any one would be coming. I fear I am in the way. Miss Methvyn perhaps does not know that Monsieur is—that you are here. Can I tell her?”
She spoke with a sort of appealing childishness, and her foreign accent was quite perceptible. “Who can she be?” was Mr. Guildford’s first thought. And “She evidently does not know who I am,” was his second.
“Oh! no, thank you. I should apologise for disturbing you,” he began. “It is not Miss Methvyn I have come to see,” he went on, feeling himself somehow stiff and awkward. “I am waiting to see Colonel Methvyn. I have come from Sothernbay,—instead of Dr. Farmer,” he added, seeing she still looked perplexed.
“Doctore Farmère,” she repeated. Then a light seemed to break upon her. “Ah! but I am stupid;” she exclaimed, a merry smile dimpling over her face. “You are then Monsieur the doctor! I did not know. All is still strange to me. There are so few days since I left the house—the home! And here in England all is so different. No longer the dear mamma to direct me. I fear monsieur will have thought me strange, unpolite—to have interrupted him.”
Again the vivid red dyed her cheeks, and at the mention of “the dear mamma,” tears, real tears stood in her eyes.
“Poor little thing; what a mere child she is!” thought Mr. Guildford. But aloud he only said kindly, “I think, mademoiselle,” (the word came instinctively) “it was I, not you, that was guilty of interrupting. Pray do not—”
But at that moment the door, near to which they were standing, opened, and Cicely came in. They both turned. When she saw them, a slight, the very slightest expression of surprise crossed Miss Methvyn’s face, but she came forward quickly, and shook hands with Mr. Guildford without a moment’s hesitation.