She was kneeling by her brother's side caressing Fina. She always made love to the little girl: it was one of her methods of making love to the father.
"Is she like her mother?" asked Edgar in the same low tones, looking at the child critically.
"A little," answered Josephine—"not much. It is odd, is it not, that she should be more like me?"
Just then Fina laid her fresh sweet lips against Edgar's, and he kissed her with a strange thrill of tenderness.
"Why, Edgar, I never saw you take so to a child before," cried Mrs. Harrowby, not quite pleasantly; and on Sebastian adding with his nervous little laugh, which meant the thing it assumed only to play at, "I declare I shall be quite jealous, Edgar, if you make love to my little girl like this." Edgar, who had the Englishman's dislike to observation, save when he offered himself for personal admiration, laughed too and put Fina away.
But the child had taken a fancy to him, and could scarcely be induced to leave him. She clung to his hand still, and went reluctantly when her stepfather called her. It was a very little matter, but men being weak in certain directions, it delighted Edgar and annoyed Sebastian beyond measure.
"I hope your elder daughter is well," then said Edgar, emphasizing the adjective, the vision of Leam as he first saw her, breasting the wind, filling his eyes with a strange light.
"Leam? Quite well, thanks. But how do you know anything about her?" was Sebastian's reply.
"I met her yesterday on the moor, and Rover introduced us," answered Edgar laughing.
"How close she is!" said her father fretfully. "She never told me a word about it."