Stella's eyes fell; her breath came quickly.
"But don't you think," she said, "you could be made a little interested again? You were interested, weren't you, when you were talking to me a few minutes ago?"
Sir Julian laughed good-naturedly.
"I dare say I was interested talking to you," he said. "You're such a changeling: you play chess like a wizard and know the North like a witch. I'm afraid, Miss Waring, that interest in your conversation isn't in itself sufficient to turn a man into an author."
Stella rose slowly to her feet. She opened her lips as if to speak to Julian, but he was looking past her out of the window, with a little bitter smile that took away her hopefulness. Ostrog escorted her, growling less and less menacingly, to the door. Stella did not look back at Julian, and she forgot to hold her head up as she went out of the room. After she had gone Julian discovered that she had dropped two of her snowdrops on the floor. He picked them up carefully and laid them on his desk.
"A curious, interesting girl," he said to himself; "an incredible friend for Marian to have had. I wonder what made my mother take her up?"
CHAPTER XX
Lady Verny finished her weeding. It took her an hour and a half to do what she wanted to the bed; then she rose from her cramped position, and went into Julian's library by one of the French windows. She guessed that Stella had failed.
Julian was lying on a long couch, with his hands behind the back of his head and his eyes fixed on the ceiling. Lady Verny knew that, when he was alone, he was in the habit of lying like this for hours. He had told her that since his accident it amused him more than anything else.