Not a word was exchanged between the two men. Randolph sat down beside Arthur, and began to talk to him. Conrad drew nearer to Monica, and entered into a low-toned conversation with her. His voice sounded tender and caressing, and ever and anon such words as these reached young Trevlyn’s ears:
“Do you remember, Monica?”—“Ah, those sweet days of childhood!”—“You have not forgotten?”—“How often have I thought of it all.”
Evidently they were discussing the happy past—the bright days that had been shared by them before the cloud had fallen upon Monica’s life. Randolph could not keep his eyes away from her face. It was lit up with a new expression, half sad, and yet strangely—infinitely sweet. Conrad’s face was very beautiful too, with its delicate, almost effeminate colouring and serious, melancholy blue eyes. He had been a lovely child, and his beauty had not faded with time. It had stood him in good stead in many crises of his life, and was doing so still. There is an irrational association in most minds between beauty and goodness.
But Randolph’s face grew more and more dark as he watched the pair opposite. Old memories were stirring within him, and at last he rose and quitted the room, feeling that he could no longer stand the presence of that man within it, could no longer endure to see him bending over Monica, and talking to her in that soft, caressing way.
Conrad looked after him, a vindictive light in his soft blue eyes. As the door closed he uttered a low laugh.
“Oh, nothing. I was only wondering how long he would be able to brazen it out?”
“Why, sitting there with my eye upon him. Couldn’t you see how restless he got?”
“Restless!” repeated Arthur, quickly. “Why should he be restless?”
“Never mind, my boy. I bear him no malice. The least said the soonest mended.”
Monica was silent and a little troubled. She liked to understand things plainly. It seemed to her an unnatural thing for two men to be at almost open feud, yet unwilling to say a word as to the cause of their mutual antagonism. She thought that if they met beneath her father’s roof they should be willing to do so as friends.
Her gravity did not escape Conrad’s notice.
“Has he been maligning me already?” he asked, suddenly, with a subdued flash in his eyes.