And Gabriel Cassilis, like his wife, listened. He put off his hat, placed his umbrella in the stand, and stood in attitude, in case he should be observed, to push open the door and step in. He was so abject in his jealousy that he actually did not feel the disgrace and degradation of the act. He was so keen and eager to lose no word, that he leaned his head to the half-open door, and stood, his long thin figure trembling with excitement, like some listener in a melodrama of the transpontine stage.
There were two persons in the room, and one was a woman; and they were talking together. One was Lawrence Colquhoun and the other was Phillis Fleming.
Colquhoun was not, according to his wont, lying on a sofa, nor sitting in the easiest of the chairs. He was standing, and he was speaking in an earnest voice.
"When I saw you first," he said, "you were little Phillis—a wee toddler of six or seven. I went away and forgot all about you—almost forgot your very existence, Phillis,—till the news of Mr. Dyson's death met me on my way home again. I fear that I have neglected you since I came home; but I have been worried."
"What has worried you, Lawrence?" asked the girl.
She was sitting on the music-stool before the piano; and as she spoke she turned from the piano, her fingers resting silently on the notes. She was dressed for the party,—which was over now, and the guests departed,—in a simple muslin costume, light and airy, which became her well. And in her hair she had placed a flower. There were flowers all about the room, flowers at the open window, flowers in the conservatory beyond, flowers on the bright green lawns beyond.
"How pretty you are, Phillis!" answered her guardian.
He touched her cheek with his finger as she sat.
"I am your guardian," he said, as if in apology.
"And you have been worried about things?" she persisted. "Agatha says you never care what happens."