Page:Roy Norton--The unknown Mr Kent.djvu/29

 "You said there was no inn!" indignantly remonstrated the old peasant woman. "You said that"

"S-s-sh!" Kent silenced her, with twinkling eyes. "Forget that," he said, quietly. "All you are to do is to see that they are made comfortable. Understand?" he rapped out like an order, on discovering that she still hesitated. Grumbling, but obedient, and more or less subjugated, she turned back toward her kitchen just as the outer door opened and through it stepped a young woman who, without hesitation, walked to the fire and with gloved fingers fumbled at the buttons of her coat, and doffed it with an air of satisfaction, exposing a graceful, well-rounded figure clad in a serviceable tailored costume. Kent, watching her, and ignored, saw that her fine eyes were sombre and absent, as if her mind were concentrated on something other than her surroundings, and that her hands, when ungloved and lifted with feminine habitude to adjust her disordered, exquisite hair, were white and graceful. Her features were refined, sensitive, well bred, and of strength. Her lips, grave, and compressed, made him wonder what they might be like when relaxed by laughter. Tenderness and strength, he decided, were her characteristics and he was not quite certain but what, under different circumstances, [25]