"Garry dear, I've been so busy schooling horses and dancing that I've had no time for letter writing. So glad you're coming at last. Bring along any good novels you see. My best to Jim. Your guests can be well mounted, if they ride. Father is wild because there are more foxes than usual, but he's promised not to treat them as vermin, and the Northbrook pack is to hunt our territory this season, after all. Poor Dad! He is a brick, isn't he?"
Barres pocketed his sheaf of letters and began to stroll about the studio, whistling the air of some recent musical atrocity.
Westmore, in his own room, composing verses--a secret vice unsuspected by Barres--bade him "Shut up!"--the whistling no doubt ruining his metre.
But Barres, with politest intentions, forgot himself so many times that the other man locked up his "Lines to Thessalie when she was sewing on a button for me," and came into the studio.
"Where's who?" demanded Barres, still sensitive over the increasing intimacy of this headlong young man and Thessalie Dunois.
"In there fussing with Dulcie's togs. Go ahead in, if you care to."
"Most of it. How many trunks is Thessa taking?"
"How do I know?" said Barres, with a trace of irritation. "She's at liberty to take as many as she likes."
Westmore didn't notice the irritation; his mind was entirely occupied by Thessalie--an intellectual condition which had recently become rather painfully apparent to Barres, and, doubtless, equally if not painfully apparent to Thessalie herself.
Probably Dulcie noticed it, too, but gave no sign, except when the serious grey eyes stole toward Barres at times, as though vaguely apprehensive that he might not be entirely in sympathy with Westmore's enchanted state of mind.
As for Thessalie, though Westmore's naïve and increasing devotion could scarcely escape her notice, it was utterly impossible to tell how it affected her--whether, indeed, it made any impression at all.
For there seemed to be no difference in her attitude toward these two men; it was plain enough that she liked them both--that she believed in them implicitly, was happy with them, tranquil now in her new security, and deeply penetrated with gratitude for their kindness to her in her hour of need.