Hester paused at the window--smiling. There was wildness--triumph--in her look, as though for her this quiet afternoon had seen some undisclosed adventure. Her cheek was hotly flushed, her loosened hair made a glory in the evening sun. Youth, selfishly pitiless--youth, the supplanter and destroyer--stood embodied in the beautiful creature looking down upon Alice Puttenham, on the still intensity of the plaintive face, the closed eyes, the hands holding the miniature.
Mischievously the girl came closer. She took the stillness before her for sleep.
With a start, Alice Puttenham sprang up. The miniature dropped from her hands to the floor, opening as it fell. Hester looked at it astonished--and her hand stooped for it before Miss Puttenham had perceived her loss.
"Were you asleep, Aunt Alsie?" she asked, wondering. "I got tired of that stupid party--and I--well, I just slipped away"--the clear high voice had grown conscious--"and I looked in here, because I left a book behind me--Auntie, who is it?" She bent eagerly over the miniature, trying to see it in the dim light.
Miss Puttenham's face had faded to a gray-white.
"Give it to me, Hester!" She held out her hand imperiously.
"Mayn't I know even who it is?" asked Hester, as she unwillingly returned it. In the act she caught the inscription and her face kindled.
Impetuously throwing herself down beside Miss Puttenham, the girl looked up at her with an expression half mockery, half sweetness, while Alice, with unsteady fingers, replaced the case and locked the drawer.
"What an awfully handsome fellow!" said Hester in a low voice, "though you wouldn't let me see it properly. I say, Auntie, won't you tell me--?"
"Who he was--and why I never saw it before? I thought I knew all your things by heart--and now you've been keeping something from me!" The girl's tone had changed to one of curious resentment. "You know how you scold _me_ when you think I've got a secret."
Miss Puttenham tried to rise, but Hester, who was leaning against her knee, prevented it.
"Why is it different?" she said, audaciously. "You always say you--you--want to be everything to me--and then you hide things from me--and I--"
She raised herself, sitting upright on the floor, her hands round her knees, and spoke with extraordinary animation and sparkling eyes.