come," but was there notwithstanding, persuaded by
Ursula, who, glad for once to escape from the anxieties of dinner, had
celebrated tea with the children, to their great delight, though she was
still too dreamy and pre-occupied to respond much to them. And Northcote
had "not intended to come." Indeed, he had gone further than this, he
had intended to keep away. But when he had eaten his solitary dinner,
he, too, had strayed towards the centre of attraction, and walking up
and down in forlorn contemplation of the lighted windows, had been spied
by Reginald, and brought in after a faint resistance. So the four were
together again, with only Janey to interpose an edge of general
criticism and remark into the too personal strain of the conversation.
Janey did not quite realize the importance of the place she was
occupying, but she was keenly interested in all that was going on, very
eager to understand the relationships in which the others stood, and to
see for herself what progress had been made last night while she was
absent. Her sharp girlish face, in which the eyes seemed too big for the
features, expressed a totally different phase of existence from that
which softened and subdued the others. She was all eyes and ears, and
watchful scrutiny. It was she who prevented the utterance of the
half-dozen words trembling on Northcote's lips, to which Ursula had a
soft response fluttering somewhere in her pretty throat, but which was
not destined to be spoken to-night; and it was she who made Phoebe's
music quite a simple performance, attended with little excitement and no
danger. Phoebe was the only one who was grateful to her, and perhaps even
Phoebe could have enjoyed the agitations of the evening better had Janey
been away. As it was, these agitations were all suppressed and
incipient; they could not come to anything; there were no hairbreadth
escapes, no breathless moments, when the one pursued had to exercise her
best skill, and only eluded the pursuer by a step or two. Janey, with
all her senses about her, hearing everything, seeing everything,
neutralized all effort on the part of the lovers, and reduced the
condition of Ursula and Phoebe to one of absolute safety. They were all
kept on the curb, in the leash, by the presence of this youthful
observer; and the evening, though full of a certain excitement and
mixture of happiness and misery, glided on but slowly, each of the young
men outdoing the other in a savage eage