“Mr. Longueville must come again, must he not, dear?” asked mamma.
“I shall come very often, with your leave,” Bernard declared.
“It will be immensely kind,” said Angela, looking away.
“I am not sure that you will think it that.”
“I don’t know what you are trying to prove,” said Angela; “first that we ran away from you, and then that we are not nice to our visitors.”
“Oh no, not that!” Bernard exclaimed; “for I assure you I shall not care how cold you are with me.”
She walked away toward another door, which was masked with a curtain that she lifted.
“I am glad to hear that, for it gives me courage to say that I am very tired, and that I beg you will excuse me.”
She glanced at him a moment over her shoulder; then she passed out, dropping the curtain.
Bernard stood there face to face with Mrs. Vivian, whose eyes seemed to plead with him more than ever. In his own there was an excited smile.
“Please don’t mind that,” she murmured. “I know it ‘s true that she is tired.”
“Mind it, dear lady?” cried the young man. “I delight in it. It ‘s just what I like.”
“Ah, she ‘s very peculiar!” sighed Mrs. Vivian.
“She is strange--yes. But I think I understand her a little.”
“I hope to have many to-morrows!” cried Bernard as he took his departure.
And he had them in fact. He called the next day at the same hour, and he found the mother and the daughter together in their pretty salon. Angela was very gentle and gracious; he suspected Mrs. Vivian had given her a tender little lecture upon the manner in which she had received him the day before. After he had been there five minutes, Mrs. Vivian took a decanter of water that was standing upon a table and went out on the balcony to irrigate her flowers. Bernard watched her a while from his place in the room; then she moved along the balcony and out of sight. Some ten minutes elapsed without her re-appearing, and then Bernard stepped to the threshold of the window and looked for her. She was not there, and as he came and took his seat near Angela again, he announced, rather formally, that Mrs. Vivian had passed back into one of the other windows.
Angela was silent a moment--then she said--
She was very peculiar--that was very true; yet Bernard held to his declaration of the day before that he now understood her a little.