Page:The Other House (London, William Heinemann, 1896), Volume 1.djvu/92

78 "It was by my advice, and I'm sure you'll find it's all right," Rose returned. "But you'll send him back to us."

"On the spot." The Doctor picked his way out.

"He's not at all easy," Dennis pronounced when he had gone.

Rose demurred. "How do you know that?"

"By looking at him. I'm not such a fool," her visitor added with some emphasis, "as you strike me as wishing to make of me."

Rose candidly stared. "As I strike you as wishing?" For a moment this young couple looked at each other hard, and they both changed colour. "My dear Dennis, what do you mean?"

He evidently felt that he had been almost violently abrupt; but it would have been equally evident to a spectator that he was a man of cool courage. "I mean, Rose, that I don't quite know what's the matter with you. It's as if, unexpectedly, on my eager arrival, I find something or other between us."

She appeared immensely relieved. "Why, my dear child, of course you do! Poor Julia's between us—much between us." She faltered again; then