“I thought that was the sort of thing girls did generally. Of course I mightn’t be allowed to see them, Pen?” He spoke in jest; but his eyes were fastened hungrily on the letters.
“Oh dear, yes! I don’t mind. Why shouldn’t you?”
Colin was taken aback. He had no experience in love-affairs, but it struck him that this was not quite as it should be. He smoothed out the crushed sheets as she handed them to him.
“Why, they look just as if you had crumpled them up and thrown them across the room!” he said.
“Well, if you are anxious to know, that is exactly what I did do, and the ayah picked them up and put them carefully into a drawer.”
“Pen!” Colin was shocked. “What could you have been thinking about?”
“Oh, I happened to be in a bad temper, that was all, of course. Don’t worry your head about it, dear. Now that you are better, I don’t so much mind all the other things. I oughtn’t to be cross and horrid, when I’m so thankful about you, ought I? but I’m tired, and we’ve been anxious about you for so long.”
She bent over him and kissed his forehead, and Colin, though perplexed, acquiesced in her evident desire to change the subject. But he watched her anxiously, noticing the irritability which was so new in her voice, and the restless unhappiness of her face when she thought herself alone.
“Pen,” he said suddenly one day, “has anything gone wrong between you and George?”
“Oh, nothing particular,” she answered listlessly. “It’s only that if I knew I should never see him again, I should be perfectly happy.”