“Considering that they have been baked! But they affect the mind,” Blanche went on. “They would have affected Captain Lovelock’s--only he has n’t any. They certainly affected Angela’s--putting it into her head, at eleven o’clock, to come out to walk.”
Angela did nothing whatever to defend herself against this ingenious sally; she simply stood there in graceful abstraction. Bernard was vaguely vexed at her neither looking at him nor speaking to him; her indifference seemed a contravention of that right of criticism which Gordon had bequeathed to him.
“I supposed people went to bed at eleven o’clock,” he said.
Angela glanced about her, without meeting his eye.
Miss Evers strolled on, and her Captain of course kept pace with her; so that Bernard and Miss Vivian were left standing together. He looked at her a moment in silence, but her eye still avoided his own.
“You are remarkably inconsistent,” Bernard presently said. “You take a solemn vow of seclusion this afternoon, and no sooner have you taken it than you proceed to break it in this outrageous manner.”
She looked at him now--a long time--longer than she had ever done before.
“This is part of the examination, I suppose,” she said.
“The one you have undertaken--on Mr. Wright’s behalf.”
“Ah, you admit it then?” the girl exclaimed, with an eager laugh.
“I don’t in the least admit it,” said Bernard, conscious only for the moment of the duty of loyalty to his friend and feeling that negation here was simply a point of honor.
“I trust more to my own conviction than to your denial. You have engaged to bring your superior wisdom and your immense experience to bear upon me! That ‘s the understanding.”
“You must think us a pretty pair of wiseacres,” said Bernard.
“There it is--you already begin to answer for what I think. When Mr. Wright comes back you will be able to tell him that I am ‘outrageous’!” And she turned away and walked on, slowly following her companions.
“What do you care what I tell him?” Bernard asked. “You don’t care a straw.”
She said nothing for a moment, then, suddenly, she stopped again, dropping her eyes.
“I beg your pardon,” she said, very gently; “I care a great deal. It ‘s as well that you should know that.”
Bernard stood looking at her; her eyes were still lowered.