“And, Beattie, may I say something rather intimate? I’m your brother now.”
“Yes.”
She was sitting opposite to him near the fire on a low chair. There was a large shaded lamp in the room, but it was on a rather distant table. He saw Beatrice’s face by the firelight and her narrow thoroughbred figure in a dark dress. And the firelight, he thought, gave to both face and figure a sort of strange beauty that was sad, and that had something of the strangeness and the beauty of those gold and red castles children see in the fire. They glow—and that evening there was a sort of glow in Beatrice; they crumble—and then there was a pathetic something in Beatrice, too, which suggested wistful desires, perhaps faint hopes and an ending of ashes.
“Would you marry old Guy if he asked you? Don’t be angry with me.”
“I’m not.”
“Of course, we’ve all known for ages how much he cares for you. He spoke to me about it to-day. He’s desperately afraid of your refusing him. He daren’t put his fate to the test. Beattie—would you?”
A slow red crept over Beatrice’s face. She put up one hand to guard herself from the glow of the fire. For a moment she looked at Dion, and he thought, “What a strange expression firelight can give to a face!” Then she said:
“I can’t tell you.”
Her voice was husky.
“Beattie, you’ve got a cold!”