‘Yes,’ said Frank, with a sudden relapse, ‘with such music as we had there the other day, the place was like paradise.’
‘You liked little Alice Severn’s playing,’ said Nelly. ‘Ah! yes, I remember. She plays very well. For myself I am not fanatical about music. I don’t understand it. I want to know what it says, and it says nothing. And these musical people are so exclusively musical, they never seem to have brains for anything else.’
‘But that could not be the case with—Miss Severn, I should think,’ said Frank, taking a foolish pleasure in speaking of her, and making a little pause before her name like a worshipper. Nelly gave him a quick glance, and answered carelessly.
‘Oh, Alice! She is a good little thing enough; but I don’t think she has much brains,—few girls have,—or men either for that matter. I don’t expect anything of the kind from people who come to this house.’
‘You are not complimentary to your visitors,’ said Frank, feeling mortified, and with a secret sense that something at least of this condemnation was intended for himself.
‘Well, Mr. Renton, few of our visitors are complimentary to us,’ said Nelly, with a flush on her face, which even Frank perceived was quite different from the soft blush which had greeted his first appearance. Probably her quick ear had caught some difference in his tone, though he was not himself aware of it. ‘We are rich, and you come to us when we ask you, and are very civil; but I know you laugh at us behind our backs, and make very free with our names, and do not show us the respect you would to the most miserable creature who was of good family. And then you think we are taken in by it, and don’t know——’
‘Miss Rich, you must allow me to say that personally you are doing me a great injustice,’ said Frank, colouring high. ‘I cannot undertake to be responsible for everybody who comes here; but so far as myself and my friends are concerned——’
‘Oh, I beg your pardon!’ cried Nelly, turning her face towards him with sudden shame and penitence which made it beautiful. Her large brilliant eyes were full of tears, and the eloquent blood had rushed to her cheeks. She held out her hands to him in the fervour of her compunction. ‘Oh, forgive me!—do forgive me! I was cross. I did not know what I was saying. I did not mean you.’
There was nothing that Frank could do but take the pretty, soft, appealing hands, and hold them in his own for a moment. He did not kiss them, as no doubt he would have done had he never paid that visit to the Square. ‘There is nothing for me to forgive,’ he said in softened tones. And then Nelly recovered herself, and took her hands away.
‘But you must forgive me,’ she said, ‘for being cross to you, who, I am sure, did not deserve it. Your mother called on Wednesday, and mamma was so pleased. You know we are new people,—very new people—and it is a great thing for us to have Mrs. Renton calling. But because we are such spick-and-span new people we have always something happening to vex us. One hears bits of gossip about you officers,—how you laugh and discuss one, and take things in your head,’ said Nelly, breaking off suddenly, and looking full in Frank’s face. What did she mean? Whatever it was, it covered him with embarrassment and shame. This conversation at least was true. He had been taking things in his head, and he did not know how to meet her look, or give her any reply.