He recognised her embarrassment, and betrayed some confusion also, for he saw the child upon her knee. His colour went and came, and his heart heat violently. He did not look so pleasantly at her as before.
“I must beg to be excused for my intrusion,” he said, in a low grave tone; “I come, however, to prepare you for a visit from your brother. Are you prepared to face him?”
There was something in his tone and manner so harsh and changed from the style in which he had previously addressed her; so different, indeed, from the expression his face wore when, looking up, her eyes suddenly encountered his beaming on her, for no other word would fitly give their expression, that involuntarily she felt hurt and indignant.
A reproach was implied. She felt that she had deserved no reproach—at least from him. His curtness seemed to her out of place, and if she refused to think it impertinent, she felt that it was as unjust as it appeared unkind.
She turned her clear, intelligent eyes upon him, and while a roseate hue spread itself over her face, she responded to his words by the monosyllable, uttered in a tone of inquiry—
“Sir?”
Again he looked at the little laughing, dark-eyed babe which she held so lovingly in her arms, and his blood seemed to freeze in his veins.
“I really,” he said abruptly, “know not how to address you—I suppose by the married appellative.”
Lotte felt her face and forehead burn as if they were on fire. Her usually mild eye glittered like a diamond.
“I really cannot see, Mr. Wilton,” she answered, “the slightest necessity for your afflicting yourself with any supposition concerning one so humble as myself.”