The Gold of Chickaree — Part 179

A pile of business letters demanded Mr. Rollo's time after dinner; and while he was somewhat absorbed in them, Hazel softly brought a foot cushion to his side and placed herself there. It was almost a demonstration, the way she did this, but she ventured nothing further, and sat there still and absorbed in her own musings. Dark blue silky folds lay all around her, and hands and arms came out a little from the wide lace sleeves and were crossed upon her knees. Rollo's eyes wandered to her from his letters once and again, and finally he tossed them aside, and stooped down to look at her and pull her curls a little away from her face.

'Business can wait!'—he said. 'What are you musing about, duchess?'

Rollo began to laugh. 'May I know what I am to superintend?'

'Well,' said Hazel, with a bit of a laugh on her side, 'you were filling my trunk—and I could not tell how!'

'Why not?' said Dane, drawing a long curl through his fingers.

'Than to think the same things would suit two so different people.'

'O I did not suppose you would muffle me in stone-coloured merino,' said Hazel,—'but I mean— You know what I mean!'—

'I should not like you as well in stone-coloured merino as in blue. Should a bird of paradise wear the plumage of a thrush or a quail?'

Hazel looked soberly down at the dark silky waves that rippled along between her and the firelight. She said not a word. Dane knew well enough what she was thinking of, but chose to have the subject brought forward by herself if at all. He paused a minute.

'Would you like a trunk filled like Prim's?'

Hazel trilled her fingers thoughtfully over the hand that lay near her, and then suddenly asked, 'Does that annoy you?'

'Not much,' said Rollo drily. She glanced up at him.

'Mr. Falkirk used to hate it.—And I forgot what my hand was about,' said Hazel; sedately folding it again with its small comrade. From which it as brought back, first to her husband's lips.

'Have we got to the bottom of that trunk yet?'

'There was another point,' said Hazel. '_Should_ I ever get to the bottom of it?'

'Never!' said Dane. 'If getting to the bottom of it implied using what you took out.'

'That was just how I felt, 'she said. 'But Olaf'—growing sober again—'after all you do not answer the real intrinsic question.'