Constance.—"Yes." She has again fallen into a dreamy study of him, as unconscious, apparently, as if he were a picture before her, the effect of which is to reduce him to a state of immovable awkwardness. At last he tears himself loose from the spot on which he has been petrifying, and takes refuge in the business which has brought him into the room.
Bartlett.—"I came to look for one of my brushes. It must have dropped out of my traps here the other day." He goes up to the piano and looks about the floor, while Constance's gaze follows him in every attitude and movement. "Ah, here it is! I knew it would escape the broom under the landlady's relaxed régime. If you happen to drop anything in this room, Miss Wyatt, you needn't be troubled; you can always find it just where it fell." Miss Wyatt's fan again slips to the floor, and Bartlett again picks it up and restores it to her: "A case in point."
Constance, blushing faintly.—"Don't do it for me. It isn't worth while."
Bartlett, gravely.—"It doesn't take a great deal of time, and the exercise does me good." Constance faintly smiles, but does not relax her vigilance. "Isn't that light rather strong for you?" He goes to the glass doors opening on the balcony, and offers to draw down one of their shades.
Constance.—"It doesn't make any difference."
Bartlett, bluffly.—"If it's disagreeable it makes some difference. Is it disagreeable?"
Constance.—"The light's strong"—Bartlett dashes the curtain down—"but I could see the mountain." He pulls the curtain up.
Bartlett.—"I beg your pardon." He again falls into statue-like discomposure under Miss Wyatt's gaze, which does not seek the distant slopes of Ponkwasset, in spite of the lifted curtain.
Constance.—"What is the name? Do you know?"