Page:Alice Stuyvesant - The Vanity Box.djvu/18

 the heat's oppressive, isn't it? A brooding, ominous sort of feeling in the air. I shall be quite right again, when I've had a little good sleep, and the weather changes."

"Of course you will, better than ever," said Mrs. Forestier, who was never uncomplimentary or uncomfortable for long. "As for me I adore this sort of weather. It doesn't feel ominous to me. The world's looking so divine. I love my bit of it."

"So do I, mine," Lady Hereward hastened to reply. "It was good to come to dear old Friars' Moat again, wasn't it, Ian?"

"Yes," he said, smiling pleasantly at her, if a little absent-mindedly.

Mrs. Forestier wondered if she knew what he was really thinking about. It was difficult to be sure whether Sir Ian was romantically inclined or not, and yet—he had a romantic profile, she told herself; the kind of profile and the kind of romance that one associated with knights of old, and King Arthur's Round Table and all that. The gravity of his expression when not actually smiling was very marked, but suitable to a soldier who had gone through experiences which sober and age a man before his time. Sir Ian's eyes looked rather wistful, too, if you met them unexpectedly, catching his soul unprepared for attack, as it were; but very likely this did not mean anything as exciting as it appeared to mean. He was a happy