But she was still sore and angry. Still holding the "Vicar of Wakefield" in her hand, she stood, staring absently into the fire.
"So that's what people will be saying about us--that we are pushing and scheming, and--and trying to make friends just to use them for our advantage," she thought bitterly, recalling Mrs. Porterbridge's unfriendly little insinuation.
Sensitive and proud as she was, that unfinished remark, made in the cold, hard tone of a woman who, judging the whole world by herself, credited everyone alike with self-interested and worldly motives, had inflicted a wound that would be long in healing. It was not indeed on her own account that she resented it so bitterly, but because of her mother and Alma, whose actions, she knew, could be so misinterpreted and ascribed to quite false motives. She knew, too, less by experience than by instinct, that beneath all the pleasures and gaiety which Alma craved so eagerly, would flow that bitter undercurrent of cynical comment made by people who had so long been self-seeking that they could not believe in the artlessness of a young girl's simple thirst for enjoyment.
Busy with these thoughts, a little strange and mature perhaps for her age, she was quite unconscious of two interesting facts. First, that from an armchair just beyond the radius of the lamplight, the source of the cigarette smoke was regarding her with mingled astonishment and approval, and, second, that she herself was making a very charming picture as she stood in the deep, mellow glow of the firelight.
A small man, with a kind, whimsical, clever face, was looking at her with a pair of singularly bright brown eyes--eyes which had the direct, unwavering, gentle gaze of a person who has the gift of reading the meaning of faces and expressions to which others are blind. Indeed, so clearly had he guessed the trend of the thoughts which underlay the seriousness of Nancy's sensitive face, that he felt almost like an eavesdropper. Suddenly she jerked her head and saw him. He stood up.
"I--I beg your pardon," he apologized, still with the sensation of having heard something that had not been meant for his ears. "You didn't know I was here, and I was rather at a loss as to how I should break it to you."