"Why don't you send those men to Mr. Raymond?" I burst out finally. "You ought not to be bothered. What do you know about such things?"
"I know all about them," she returned gravely. "I never let anybody trouble poor grandpapa."
"My mother would not let anything trouble me if she could help it, yet I am a boy and almost fifteen years old."
She looked at me wistfully and smiled her peculiar indefinable smile, then put her hand in mine, and we went toward the house together. Just as night fell dinner-time came. I had gone to my room to dress at five o'clock, but finding that all my windows looked out upon the water, I had forgotten everything else in watching the sea, which took hue after hue as the sun sank, growing black and turbid as it settled into a bank of gray cloud, then, when the last beams reddened every rift, lighting up into a brief splendor of crimson and gold, absorbing all the glory of the firmament. I felt rather homesick and dreary. I knew that in the dusky streets of Belfield the boys were walking up and down beneath the russet elms, wondering about me while they talked. I knew that my mother was sitting in the bay-window with the light of the sunset in her face, and that she was longing to have me with her again. When, finally, I roused myself to dress, and went along the dim halls and down the great staircase lined with niches where calm-faced statues stood regarding me with a fixed and solemn air, I was quite dull and dreary, and needed all the cheerful influences of the warmed and lighted rooms to brighten me up.
At dinner Mr. Raymond seemed more what I had expected him to be than I had found him at first sight. He was dressed with scrupulous propriety, and wore a ceremonious and precise air which better accorded with his position as master of the house. He talked well, and asked me many questions about our life in Belfield, made inquiries about George Lenox, and was interested when I told him about Georgina. And about Georgina I found myself presently talking with a freedom which amazed myself, for my habits were reserved, and of all that I felt and thought about Georgy I had never yet said anything except to my mother. But in this beautiful house, which seemed so fitting a place for my lovely princess, and which was of late the object of her dreams, I felt moved to be her ambassador and to plead her cause as well as I might. I spoke not only of her beauty and her cleverness, but of the drawbacks to her success in life. I anticipated criticism, and disarmed it. "Oh, Helen!" I burst out at length, "you would love her so dearly--I am sure you would!"