"My dear child," she said at last, as she drew Eleanor's reluctant hand within her arm, and tried to look into the girl's averted face, "you must not be so shy with me! Remember that I am your aunt, and that as you have no mother, and I no daughter, we might be very much to one another in the future."
These graciously uttered words, accompanied as they were by a charming smile, and a gentle drawing of the girl to her side, as if she would have kissed her, caused Margaret's jealousy to increase.
But the proffered caress, far from waking in Eleanor a responsive feeling, caused her to shrink further away from Lady Strangways' side.
"You are very kind, Lady Strangways," she said uneasily, "but--but we are only strangers as yet, aren't we?"
Had Eleanor not been at her wits' end to know what to say, she would scarcely have uttered such an extremely _gauche_ remark as that, but as a matter of fact she had not the very remotest idea what she was saying.
Lady Strangways drew back and looked gravely for a moment at Eleanor's averted face. She was obviously unused to have her overtures rejected, and she was wondering if Eleanor's ungracious answer and constrained manner was dictated by shyness only.
"Yes, at present we are strangers," she made reply, rather coldly; "but I wish to know my niece, and you mustn't call me Lady Strangways, you must call me Aunt Helen."
"Oh, I would really rather not," Eleanor said, and this time her distress and embarrassment were so marked that Lady Strangways, though she still looked exceedingly puzzled, allowed her manner to soften.
"Never mind, then," she said, "I won't ask you to do anything you would rather not. I hear you are having singing lessons from Madame Martelli. Will you sing to me?"
"Oh, yes," Eleanor responded with alacrity. She started across the lawn towards the house at a great rate, her relief at being released from the immediate necessity of further conversation with her new-found relative so plainly expressed in the way in which she was careful to keep a couple of yards ahead of her, that Lady Strangways raised her eyebrows in mute protest at her niece's extraordinarily _farouche_ behaviour.
When they reached the little drawing-room, gay with flowers, she sank gracefully into a chair, and resigned herself to a rather trying five minutes. Eleanor searched among her music, opened the piano, and sat down.