‘Oh, Nelly! how can you speak so?’ she cried. To Alice, Frank Renton was a paladin,—too fine a being to approach with freedom at all, much less with candid questioning. Tell them everything he ever did! He would be angry, Alice thought. ‘Oh, Nelly! how dare you?’ she cried. And Frank was as much touched by the sound of that soft little exclamation as if her utterances had been those of the highest wisdom.
‘Begin with Eton?’ he said. ‘It is so long ago I forget; and besides, I have always been so good, and gentle, and well behaved, that there is nothing to tell about me. I will tell you about Laurie, if you like. He was always an unlucky fellow,—too late for everything, and never quite sure whether he was right or wrong;—but the best fellow that ever was born. You would have liked Laurie if you had known him. And I wanted you to know him,’ continued Frank. ‘You would have suited each other so well.’
‘Should we?’ said Nelly, still looking up, and leaning back her head against the high back of her chair. ‘Alice, please go and play us something. If you cannot manage the organ, there is the piano. Mr. Renton, tell me why you wanted me to know your brother, and why you thought he would have particularly suited me.’ The question brought the guilty blood to Frank’s face. What a little inquisitor she was! What strange, outspoken people were the entire family! ‘Why did you think he would have suited me?—tell me,’ she asked, looking fixedly into his face.
‘Oh, I only thought,—I don’t know that I had any motive;—I suppose because you are both fond of pictures, and both.’—here Frank paused to take breath,—‘both,—why both artists, you know, in a way,’ he said, with confusion; and during this broken utterance Nelly never once removed from him her brilliant eyes.
‘I see,’ she said quietly, while Frank looked out at the window, and saw Mr. Rich and Alf leisurely turning down towards the woods, and wished he were with them after all. Being advised for his good was bad enough, but to have his secrets thus demanded of him, and himself looked through and through, was worse. Confound it! what did she see? that he had been thinking of handing her over to Laurie? that he had been ready to traffic with her, presuming on the notice she had taken of him, and coolly planning to get her money for his brother? Was this what she saw, the little sorceress? Just then Alice, who had been sent away not to disturb the investigation, began to strike some plaintive chords on the piano. Ah, there was a creature who would never gaze at a man with such disdainful, suspicious scrutiny—a consolatory being, that would sweeten and smooth life, and make its sorrows bearable, instead of adding distraction to distraction! Frank felt sure that she had heard what was passing, and struck in at the most difficult moment to relieve his embarrassment and tranquillise his mind. Bless her! and of the other he had said, in his perplexity, Confound her! While he stood silent, looking out, the music stole about his heart and caressed and soothed him. He felt as if it had not been the music but the musician who did so; but of course that was nonsense. It freed him from the necessity of making Nelly any further answer, or asking what it was she saw, as a man strong in conscious right might have done. But all Frank’s consciousness was of wrong.
It was Nelly who was the first to speak. She changed her position rapidly, and with it her manner and all that was objectionable in her looks. She leaned forward to him with her arm on the ledge of the window. ‘I am impertinent,’ she said; ‘yes, I know you think so; but you must not be angry, Mr. Renton, as Alice says.’
‘Angry!’ cried Frank.
‘Yes, angry; you might be, for I have been very disagreeable. I can’t help being disagreeable now and then. You are very fond of your brother, and you wanted me to know him. It was a great compliment; and before you came I was saying to Alice how I wished I could have gone with him, and lived just as he did. But I can’t, you know. A girl never can do anything she wants to do. That is what makes us envy you so, and admire your independence and your freedom,’ said Nelly, looking up with different eyes,—with eyes as plaintive and insinuating as the music,—into Frank’s face.
What could he do? He was mollified in spite of himself. ‘Not so very independent, after all,’ he said. ‘A subaltern cannot boast of much in that way. I have to come and go as I am told, and ask leave before I can get away to see my friends.’
‘And have a hard life altogether,’ said Nelly. ‘That is very sad; but if I were to ask leave ever so they would not let me go to Rome as your brother has done. I wish he had been my brother, and then I might have gone with him; but our poor boys don’t understand that sort of thing. George knows about the money market and all that. And when Harry comes home he will probably be able to talk of indigo. Isn’t it indigo? And Alf,—what should you say Alf knows most about, Mr. Renton?’ said Nelly, with fun dancing in her eyes.