She rose, and unconsciously with such an air that he saw her effort, then came and sat on a lower seat directly before him.
"When papa, when my dear father was living," said she, "I had a maid, who was always mine, who grew up with me, being only a little younger, and I became attached to her"——
And before Éloise knew it she was lightly playing with Mr. St. George's riding-whip,—that being one of her warm traits just out of Nature, the appropriation of everything about her.
"And you have her no longer? That shall be attended to."
"Oh, yes, Sir, she waits on me still; that isn't it. She is only seventeen, she has been an atom wayward,—just, you know, as I might have been"——
Mr. St. George smiled so perceptibly that Éloise added, throwing back her head again,—
"Just as I am, Sir! But she has behaved very nicely for several——Why, this is Mrs. Arles's whip! the one her husband gave her. I knew it by the ivory vine-stem twining the ebony; and there are her initials in the lovely gold chasing. I used to want it to play with, when I was a little girl,—and she wouldn't let me have it, of course. Pretty initials!"
"Yes," said Mr. St. George, coldly.
Éloise put it down. And then she stared at him forgetfully, and, unthinkingly, with great disappointed eyes. Thereat Mr. St. George laughed.
"Don't Russian women present the knout to their bridegrooms?" asked Éloise then, mischievously.