How long he sat there in this stupor of sullen and nameless fury he did not know, but he was sharply roused at length by footsteps light and rapid on the gravel, shocked into a start of surprise by a figure that appeared suddenly at one of the French windows that opened directly from his sitting-room on to the level sward of velvet lawn before the house.
He peered through the glass for a moment with an astonished stare before he recognized the face of Edith Coulson. He opened the doors at once, she came in quickly, smiling at his surprise and at the glass which he was holding foolishly, half-raised, in his hand.
He continued to look at her with an expression of gape-mouthed astonishment and in a moment became conscious of her smiling glance, the cool sweet assurance of her young voice.
“I say!” she was saying cheerfully, “what a lucky thing to find you up! I came away without any key—I should have had to wake the whole house up—so when I saw your light!” she concluded briskly, “—what luck! I hope you don’t mind.”
“Why no-o, no,” Eugene stammered foolishly, still staring dumbly at her. “No—no-o—not at all,” he blundered on. Then suddenly coming to himself with a burst of galvanic energy, he shut the windows, pushed another chair before the fire, and said:
“Won’t you sit down and have a drink before you go?”
“Thanks,” she said crisply. “I will—yes. What a jolly fire you have.” As she talked she took off her coat and hat swiftly and put them on a chair. Her face was flushed and rosy, beaded with small particles of rain, and for a moment she stood before the mirror arranging her hair, which had been tousled by the wind.
The girl was slender, tall, and very lovely with the kind of beauty they have when they are beautiful—a beauty so fresh, fair, and delicate that it seems to be given to just a few of them to compensate for all the grimly weathered ugliness of the rest. Her voice was also lovely, sweet, and musical, and when she talked all the notes of tenderness and love were in it. But she had the same hard bright look in her eye that her mother had, the faint set smile around her mouth: as they stood there talking she was standing very close to him, and he could smell the fragrance of her hair, and felt an intolerable desire to put his hand upon hers and was almost certain she would not draw away. But the hard bright look was in her eye, the faint set smile around her mouth, and he did nothing.
