He rose and pushed back his chair.
"Will you not see Anna for a few minutes, sir, while you are here?" queried the matron. "She always seems brighter and better for some time after one of your visits; indeed, except myself, you are the only person from whose presence at these times she does not shrink with a sort of nervous dread, as though doubtful whether they might not be about to do her some bodily harm. It was rather singular, was it not, sir, that Mrs. Drelincourt's presence at these times always had a peculiarly disturbing effect upon her?"
If Drelincourt heard the question, he did not care to answer it. He was cogitating, with a finger pressed to his lips.
"Yes," he said presently. "I will see her. I have much to do, but I can spare her a few minutes."
Thereupon Mrs. Jenwyn at once led the way to an inner room, which opened out of the first one. It was a large and sunny apartment, lighted by three windows, from which there was a view beyond the surrounding park of some miles of rolling, well timbered country. In the middle window hung a brass cage containing a couple of canaries. On a soft cushion reposed a Persian cat. From a brace of hooks in the ceiling was suspended a swing. Near at hand was a big rocking horse fitted with a side saddle. On the floor lay a pair of Indian clubs, a battledore and shuttlecock, and a hoop. In one corner was a small bookcase.
On a low chair near one of the windows sat Anna Drelincourt, busily engaged in sewing some lace on one of several dresses composing the wardrobe of a big wax doll which, seated limply on an opposite chair, its arms dangling loosely by its sides, seemed with its glassy, unwinking eyes to be watching every movement of her needle.
Occasionally Anna would look up from her work for a moment to nod her head and chirrup at Ninon, which was the doll's name; and possibly to her imaginative eyes that young person's fixed, vacuous smirk became endued, for a second or two, with a responsive meaning.
At this time, as already stated, Anna was eighteen years old. She had a slender figure of medium height, with glossy chestnut hair, and eyes of the darkest blue. Her face might have been called insignificant had not her features been so perfectly formed, and her complexion so almost dazzlingly fair.
Never was there a more April day face than Anna's, one liable to more swift changes of expression or that betrayed more ingenuously the thoughts and emotions--which sometimes ranged over a wide gamut--at work below.
This morning she was wearing a simple white frock, with her unbound hair, confined by a bit of blue ribbon, falling nearly to her waist. A tiny foot, on which dangled a bronze slipper, peeped from under the hem of her frock. She was humming softly to herself as she plied her needle.