"How do you know?"
"By the expression of her face. Did you like her music, Gerald?"
"Yes. Was she angry when I clapped?"
"She looked surprised, then rather proud, and shut the piano at once,
though I begged her to go on. Isn't Jean a pretty name?"
"Not bad; but why don't you call her Miss Muir?"
"She begged me not. She hates it, and loves to be called Jean, alone.
I've imagined such a nice little romance about her, and someday I shall
tell her, for I'm sure she has had a love trouble."
"Don't get such nonsense into your head, but follow Miss Muir's
well-bred example and don't be curious about other people's affairs. Ask
her to sing tonight; it amuses me."
"She won't come down, I think. We've planned to read and work in my
boudoir, which is to be our study now. Mamma will stay in her room, so
you and Lucia can have the drawing room all to yourselves."
"Thank you. What will Ned do?"
"He will amuse Mamma, he says. Dear old Ned! I wish you'd stir about and
get him his commission. He is so impatient to be doing something and yet
so proud he won't ask again, after you have neglected it so many times
and refused Uncle's help."
"I'll attend to it very soon; don't worry me, child. He will do very
well for a time, quietly here with us."
"You always say that, yet you know he chafes and is unhappy at being
dependent on you. Mamma and I don't mind; but he is a man, and it frets
him. He said he'd take matters into his own hands soon, and then you may
be sorry you were so slow in helping him."
"Miss Muir is looking out of the window. You'd better go and take your
run, else she will scold."
"Not she. I'm not a bit afraid of her, she's so gentle and sweet. I'm
fond of her already. You'll get as brown as Ned, lying here in the
sun. By the way, Miss Muir agrees with me in thinking him handsomer
than you."
"I admire her taste and quite agree with her."
"She said he was manly, and that was more attractive than beauty in a
man. She does express things so nicely. Now I'm off." And away danced
Bella, humming the burden of Miss Muir's sweetest song.
"'Energy is more attractive than beauty in a man.' She is right, but how
the deuce can a man be energetic, with nothing to expend his energies
upon?" mused Coventry, with his hat over his eyes.
A few moments later, the sweep of a dress caught his ear. Without
stirring, a sidelong glance showed him Miss Muir coming across the
terrace, as if to join Bella. Two stone steps led down to the lawn. He
lay near them, and Miss Muir did not see him till close upon him. She
started and slipped on the last step, recovered herself, and glided on,
with a glance of unmistakable contempt as she passed the recumbent
figure of the apparent sleeper. Several things in Bella's report had
nettled him, but this look made him angry, though he would not own it,
even to himself.