“And Miss Summerhayes plays for him,” said Meredith, turning round upon Janet with a laugh. He faced her this time, looking at her frankly, not trying to catch any corner of her eye. His look had a gleam of merriment and saucy satisfaction which make Janet glow with anger. “Didn’t I tell you so?” he seemed to say with his raised eyebrows. He laughed out with a genial roar of amusement. “I knew Miss Summerhayes would play for him,” he cried.
How did he know anything of the kind? How dared he laugh in that meaning way? How dared he look at Janet as if he had found her out; as if she, too, had a scheme like himself? Janet gave him a look in return which might have turned a more sensitive man to stone, and she said, with great dignity, wrapping herself up in the humility of her governess-state as in a mantle:
“I am here to play for anyone who wishes for my services, Mr. Meredith, as I think you ought to know.”
“Good heavens,” cried Mrs. Harwood, “my dear child! I hope you don’t take it in that serious way. If it is so disagreeable to you, my dear, you shall never be asked to humor poor Dolff again.”
“Oh, Mrs. Harwood, that is not what I meant! I am very glad to do it for anyone, but I don’t like to hear people talk—to hear people laugh——”
“The little thing is in a temper,” said Meredith, aside to Gussy, “have I said anything so very dreadful? Come and try whether they have thumped the piano all to pieces, and then we can talk.”
“I don’t know that you have said anything dreadful. And we can talk very well here,” said Gussy, in the same undertone.
“She is like a little turkey-cock,” said Meredith. “What has been going on? To think that something should always turn up, a farce or a tragedy, when one is out of the way for a few days.”
Gussy asked herself, with a catching of the breath, if it were a farce or a tragedy? How true that was! No, it would not be a tragedy now—now that he had come back.
“Nothing has been going on—except some silly songs,” she said.