Rose only smiled in answer, but waved her hand to him as he went out of the gate. She stood pensively in the hall for a moment or two after she had closed the door, and would have gone up to her own room had she not heard a step at the head of the stairs.
Isabel was coming down, also fresh and tailor-made, with a white linen collar and a dashing crimson tie. Rose strolled into the library, took up a magazine, sat down, and pretended to read.
"I'm so sorry to be late to breakfast," remarked Isabel, following her. "But perhaps it's just as well, as I wasn't invited."
"Nobody was invited," returned Rose, coolly. "I went out for an early walk, chanced to meet Mr. Kent, and he invited himself here to breakfast."
"I didn't know you were in the habit of taking early walks."
"I'm trying to acquire the habit," answered Rose, with icy sweetness.
"It won't be hard," Isabel said, maliciously, "if they're all equally pleasant." She slammed the door as she went out, shutting Rose in the library.
For an instant Rose was angry, then her sense of humour triumphed and she laughed quietly until the tears came. There was no need now to meditate upon that mysterious look in the girl's eyes, for she had translated it herself.
"The idea," said Rose to herself. "That foolish little child!" She tried to recall the conversation at the breakfast table, and remembered, with regret, that they had discussed Isabel quite freely. The thought that Isabel might have been listening before she made her presence known came forward persistently, though Rose hated herself for it.
Then, with swift resolution, she put all annoying thoughts aside to dwell, happily, upon the perfect hour that nothing could ever change or spoil. She went into the hall by another door opening out of the library, thus avoiding Isabel, and sought her own room, singing to herself: "The year's at the spring, And day's at the morn, The morning's at seven, The hillside's dew-pearled, The lark's on the wing, The snail's on the thorn; God's in His heaven-- All's right with the world!"