Copley sharply. "We are as alone
as we can be. We might as well be on a desert island. Now you have sent
off Mr. St. Leger--oh, how obstinate children are! and how little they
know what is for their good!"

This subject was threadbare. Dolly let it drop. It may be said she did
that with every subject that was started that evening. Mr. Shubrick at
supper made brave efforts to keep the talk a going; but it would not
go. Dolly said nothing; and Mrs. Copley in the best of times was never
much help in a conversation. Just now she had rather a preoccupied
manner; and I am by no means certain that, with the superhuman keenness
of intuition possessed by mothers, she had not begun to discern a
subtle danger in the air. The pressure of one fear being removed, there
was leisure for any other to come up. However, Mr. Shubrick concerned
himself only about Dolly's silence, and watched her to find out what it
meant. She attended to all her duties, even to taking care of him,
which to be sure was one of her duties; but she never looked at him.
The same veil of shy grace which had fallen upon her in the wood, was
around her still, and tantalised him.

Nor did he get another chance to speak to her alone through the next
two days that passed; carefully as he sought for it. Dolly was not to
be found or met with, unless sitting at the table behind her tea-urn
and with her mother opposite. Mr. Shubrick bided his time in a mixture
of patience and impatience. The latter needs no accounting for; the
former was half brought about and maintained by the exquisite manner of
Dolly's presentation of herself those days. The delicate, coy grace
which invested her, it is difficult to describe it or the effect of it.
She was not awkward, she was not even embarrassed, the least bit in the
world; she was grave and fair and unapproachable, with the rarest
maidenly shyness, which took the form of the rarest womanly dignity.
She was grave, at least when Mr. Shubrick saw her; but watching her as
he did narrowly and constantly, he could perceive now and then a slight
break in the gravity of her looks, which made his heart bound with a
great thrill. It was not so much a smile as a light upon her lips; a
play of them; which he persuaded himself was not unhappy. The
loveliness of the whole manifestation of Dolly during those two days,
went a good way towards keeping him quiet; but naturally it worked two
ways. And human patience has limits.

The second day, Mr