Some hint of this Harry gave to his sister as they went downstairs together. He was somewhat disappointed that she did not say again, as she had said the other day, “I don’t care about money, Harry, truly I don’t.”
“After all, I fear she does care,” thought her brother. Mr. Baldwin was in the library, Harry said, and thither they went.
When they entered the room he was standing with his back to the door, looking out of the window. A tall, powerful figure, hands in pockets, clad in tweed and velvet shooting coat, for which, by his young host’s permission, he had already exchanged the uncongenial black, in which he had performed his part as second chief mourner in the morning. But he started when Harry’s voice reached him; he had not known that the boy had gone to fetch his sister.
“I have persuaded May to come down to make tea for us, Baldwin,” said Harry.
Geoffrey Baldwin wheeled round suddenly, and his handsome face flushed.
“Miss Vere,” he exclaimed, almost before he saw her; “that’s too bad of you, Harry—not to have warned me, I mean. I thought we were to be alone. Miss Vere, you must excuse me, really. I had no business to change my clothes, but I didn’t know I should see you to-day.”
Even as he finished the words he had begun, a curious expression came over his face, and seemed to affect the tone of his voice. Marion hardly at first understood it.
“Never mind,” she said quietly, “I am sure people’s clothes have nothing to do with their feelings.”
Mr. Baldwin did not reply. He stood staring at her, regularly staring, in a way that in any one else would have been offensive and rude. But he did it so simply, so unconsciously almost, that the only feeling it aroused in Marion was an extreme, almost nervous wish to laugh. Then it flashed upon her.
“I know why you look so amazed, Mr. Baldwin,” she exclaimed. “You can’t remember where you saw me before. I can tell you. It was at the railway station, nearly a year ago,” she added, with an imperceptible sob in her voice.