her future.

Suddenly, something undefinable--a slight sound, a current of air--made
her turn her head. To her amazement she saw a young man in the doorway
looking at her with smiling eyes, and quietly drawing off his gloves.

She sprang up with a feeling of annoyance.

"Mr. Wharton!"

"Oh!--must you?"--he said, with a movement of one hand, as though to
stop her. "Couldn't you stay like that? At first I thought there was
nobody in the room. Your servant is grappling with my bags, which are as
the sand of the sea for multitude, so I wandered in by myself. Then I
saw you--and the fire--and the room. It was like a bit of music. It was
mere wanton waste to interrupt it."

Marcella flushed, as she very stiffly shook hands with him.

"I did not hear the front door," she said coldly. "My mother will be
here directly. May I give you some tea?"

"Thanks. No, I knew you did not hear me. That delighted me. It showed
what charming things there are in the world that have no spectators!
What a _delicious_ place this is!--what a heavenly old place--especially
in these half lights! There was a raw sun when I was here before, but
now--"

He stood in front of the fire, looking round the great room, and at the
few small lamps making their scanty light amid the flame-lit darkness.
His hands were loosely crossed behind his back, and his boyish face, in
its setting of curls, shone with content and self-possession.

"Well," said Marcella, bluntly, "I should prefer a little more light to
live by. Perhaps, when you have fallen downstairs here in the dark as
often as I have, you may too."

He laughed.

"But how much better, after all--don't you think so?--to have too little
of anything than too much!"

He flung himself into a chair beside the tea-table, looking up with gay
interrogation as Marcella handed him his cup. She was a good deal
surprised by him. On the few occasions of their previous meetings, these
bright eyes, and this pronounced manner, had been--at any rate as
towards herself--much less free and evident. She began to recover the
start he had given her, and to study him with a half-unwilling
curiosity.

"Then Mellor will please you," she said drily, in answer to his remark,
carrying her own tea meanwhile to a chair on the other side of the fire.
"My father never bought anything--my father can't. I believe we have
chairs enough to sit down upon--but we have no curtains to half the
windows. Can I give you anything?"