“Given the opportunity, I knew I could prove my case,” she answered with the same amount of caution in her tones as he had used. “But you mustn’t talk to me now, please; I’m in disgrace.”
“So am I,” he replied. “I wonder if you will be looking out of a window to-night?”
“I expect so.”
“I prowl about most nights,” he said, and scrutinised her face intently to observe the effect of his words.
“I know. I’ve seen you.”
“It is regrettable,” he remarked, “that the upper story of a private house is usually inaccessible. Won’t you have another piece of cake? No! Miss Matilda, may I fetch you some tea?”
The maidenly breasts of the four Miss Graynors, who were pale reflections of their eldest sister, were pleasantly stirred by Steele’s punctilious courtesy. They were envious of their young half-sister, whose temerity had led her into the indiscretion of spending an entire morning in the society of a member of the opposite sex. It does not follow that a life which has known no romance is innocent of romantic aspirations. Miss Matilda, spare and prim and slightly grey, experienced a vague sense of loss and of resentment against her single state when she met Steele’s smiling, youthful eyes, and reflected that no man’s glance had ever rested upon herself with that look of pleased interest which she observed in Steele’s face whenever it was turned in Prudence’s direction. Prudence, of course, was pretty and young. Miss Matilda’s girlhood lay behind her, but it had known none of the delights that her virgin heart longed for in the secret chamber which she seldom unlocked even for her own inspection. The emotions that lay concealed there were unbecoming in a modest woman whose function it was to be pious and dutiful in the acceptance of her lot.
It was possibly due to these hidden emotions that Steele found Miss Matilda’s society less depressing than her sister’s, and he clung to it tenaciously until the entrance of brother William assigned him as by right to the position of audience to the ponderous conversation of this man of limited intelligence and no humour. William would have failed to understand that a man, even when young, would rather talk with a woman than be talked to by himself. The manner in which his sisters effaced themselves in his presence was a tribute to, as well as a recognition of, his masculine superiority. It was the want of a proper appreciation on his youngest sister’s part in this respect that so frequently made it necessary for him to assert his dignity before her. He was angry with her now, and he passed her with his face averted, righteous indignation in his frown and in the set of his shoulders. Steele felt that it would be a pleasure to kick him; but when he detected the mischievous wickedness in Prudence’s eyes, William’s dignity became a matter for amusement rather than annoyance; the man was so obviously an ass.
“The weather,” William observed, as he took his tea, waited on by two of his sisters despite Steele’s efforts to relieve them, “shows signs of breaking. The barometer has fallen.”
“The country needs rain,” Miss Agatha remarked in tones of satisfaction.