Fleda again smiled at him, in the very dint of giving a hard push to her needle a smile that would have witched him into good humour if he had not been determinately in a cloud, and proof against everything. It only admonished him that he could not safely remain in the region of sunbeams; and he walked up and down the room furiously again. The sudden ceasing of his footsteps presently made her look up.
"What have you got there? Oh, Charlton, don't! please put that down! I didn't know I had left them there. They were a little wet, and I laid them on the chair to dry."
"What do you call this?" said he, not minding her request.
"They are only my gardening gloves I thought I had put them away."
"Gloves!" said he, pulling at them disdainfully "why, here are two one within the other what's that for?"
"It's an old-fashioned way of mending matters two friends covering each other's deficiencies. The inner pair are too thin alone, and the outer ones have holes that are past cobbling."
"Are we going to have any breakfast to-day?" said he, flinging the gloves down. "You are very late!"
"No," said Fleda, quietly "it is not time for aunt Lucy to be down yet."
"Don't you have breakfast before nine o'clock?"
"Yes by half-past eight generally."