There was something strange. Mavis saw it too, and much more clearly than did the others. To her the room seemed filled with a soft blue haze; far from appearing “dingy,” as Ruby said, she thought the vague cloudiness beautiful; and as she looked, it became plain to her that the haze all came from one corner, where it almost seemed to take form, to thicken and yet to lighten; for there was a glow and radiance over there by the window that looked towards the setting sun that did not come from any outside gleam or brightness. No indeed. For the rain was pouring down, steadily and hopelessly, with dull pitiless monotony from a leaden sky. Scarcely could you picture to yourself a drearier scene than the unbroken grey above, and unbroken grey beneath, which was all there was to be seen from the castle that afternoon. Yet in Mavis’s eyes there was a light, a reflection of something beautiful and sunshiny, as she stood there gazing across the room, with an unspoken hope in her heart.
The others did not see the look in her face, or they saw it wrong, Ruby especially, strange to say.
“What are you gaping at, Mavis?” she said.
“You do look so silly.”
Bertrand stared at her in his turn.
“She looks as if she was asleep, or dreaming,” he said curiously.
Mavis rubbed her eyes.
“No, no,” she said brightly, “I’m not.”
And then she tried to be very kind and merry and pleasant to the others. She felt as if “somebody” was watching, and would be pleased. And Bertrand was a little bit gentler and softer than he had yet been, almost giving Mavis a feeling that in some faint far-off way the sweet influence was over him too.
But Ruby was very contradictory. She ran about making fun of the old furniture and mocking at Miss Hortensia’s story till she got Bertrand to join with her, and both began boasting and talking very foolishly—worse than foolishly indeed. More than once Mavis caught words and hints which filled her with distress and anxiety. She knew, however, that when Ruby was in this kind of humour it was less than useless to say anything, now above all that she had got Bertrand to back her up.