Page:The Other House (London, William Heinemann, 1896), Volume 1.djvu/199

Rh "You were too impatient to be with dear, delightful us," Rose suggested.

Tony, with a successful air of very light comedy, smiled and inclined himself. "I was too impatient to be with you, Miss Armiger." The lapse of four years still presented him in such familiar mourning as might consort with a country nook on a summer afternoon; but it also allowed undiminished relief to a manner of addressing women which was clearly instinctive and habitual and which, at the same time, by good fortune, had the grace of flattery without phrases and of irony without impertinence. He was a little older, but he was not heavier; he was a little worn, but he was not worn dull. His presence was, anywhere and at any time, as much as ever the clock at the moment it strikes. Paul Beever's little eyes, after he appeared, rested on Rose with an expression which might have been that of a man counting the waves produced on a sheet of water by the plunge of a large object. For any like ripple on the fine surface of the younger girl he appeared to have no attention.

"I'm glad that remark's not addressed to me," Jean said gaily; "for I'm afraid I must