Page:Alice Stuyvesant - The Vanity Box.djvu/229

 Sir Ian, or Ian Barr; but even as they chatted about the exquisite grouping of the mountains, and the prettiness of the flowers with which the little suite was generously decorated, their thoughts were not with their words, which came mechanically, as women s words can.

That evening they dined in their own sitting-room; but this was not because Terry feared the prying eyes of Major Smedley. It was because she would not dine below without asking Sir Ian Hereward to sit at her table; and with Nora Verney behaving so strangely toward him, a meal together would be agreeable to no one concerned. Terry pitied Nora deeply, knowing that she suffered, and that perhaps there was no help for her suffering; but, womanlike, she could not push a certain resentfulness out of her heart. She had brought Miss Verney abroad because she was sorry for her, and because Sir Ian had asked her to be kind. It did seem a shame that the inexplicable moods of an undisciplined girl should blacken the sky already clouded by Major Smedley's hateful presence.

Terry began to pity herself as well as Nora, and Sir Ian had a great deal more than either; yet into the midst of her pity for the man would dart a sharper stab of pain sometimes. Why had Nora turned against him? If he had been a man of different nature, dark thoughts might have flitted across her fancy; but—no, she could not, would not, believe anything vulgarly base of Ian Hereward. She would believe