Effie, who was attended by a shaggy terrier, had picked up two or three subordinate dogs at the stable; and as she trotted on ahead with her yapping escort, Anna hung back to throw a look at Darrow.
“Yes,” he answered it, “she’s exquisite…Oh, I see what I’m asking of you! But she’ll be quite happy here, won’t she? And you must remember it won’t be for long…”
Anna sighed her acquiescence. “Oh, she’ll be happy here. It’s her nature to be happy. She’ll apply herself to it, conscientiously, as she does to her lessons, and to what she calls ‘being good’…In a way, you see, that’s just what worries me. Her idea of ‘being good’ is to please the person she’s with–she puts her whole dear little mind on it! And so, if ever she’s with the wrong person—-”
“But surely there’s no danger of that just now? Madame de Chantelle tells me that you’ve at last put your hand on a perfect governess—-”
Anna, without answering, glanced away from him toward her daughter.
“It’s lucky, at any rate,” Darrow continued, “that Madame de Chantelle thinks her so.”
“Oh, I think very highly of her too.”
“Highly enough to feel quite satisfied to leave her with Effie?”
“Yes. She’s just the person for Effie. Only, of course, one never knows…She’s young, and she might take it into her head to leave us…” After a pause she added: “I’m naturally anxious to know what you think of her.”
When they entered the house the hands of the hall clock stood within a few minutes of the luncheon hour. Anna led Effie off to have her hair smoothed and Darrow wandered into the oak sitting-room, which he found untenanted. The sun lay pleasantly on its brown walls, on the scattered books and the flowers in old porcelain vases. In his eyes lingered the vision of the dark-haired mother mounting the stairs with her little fair daughter. The contrast between them seemed a last touch of grace in the complex harmony of things. He stood in the window, looking out at the park, and brooding inwardly upon his happiness…
He was roused by Effie’s voice and the scamper of her feet down the long floors behind him.
“Here he is! Here he is!” she cried, flying over the threshold.
He turned and stooped to her with a smile, and as she caught his hand he perceived that she was trying to draw him toward some one who had paused behind her in the doorway, and whom he supposed to be her mother.
“Here he is!” Effie repeated, with her sweet impatience.
The figure in the doorway came forward and Darrow, looking up, found himself face to face with Sophy Viner. They stood still, a yard or two apart, and looked at each other without speaking.
As they paused there, a shadow fell across one of the terrace windows, and Owen Leath stepped whistling into the room. In his rough shooting clothes, with the glow of exercise under his fair skin, he looked extraordinarily light-hearted and happy. Darrow, with a quick side-glance, noticed this, and perceived also that the glow on the youth’s cheek had deepened suddenly to red. He too stopped short, and the three stood there motionless for a barely perceptible beat of time. During its lapse, Darrow’s eyes had turned back from Owen’s face to that of the girl between them. He had the sense that, whatever was done, it was he who must do it, and that it must be done immediately. He went forward and held out his hand.
“How do you do, Miss Viner?”
She answered: “How do you do?” in a voice that sounded clear and natural; and the next moment he again became aware of steps behind him, and knew that Mrs. Leath was in the room.
To his strained senses there seemed to be another just measurable pause before Anna said, looking gaily about the little group: “Has Owen introduced you? This is Effie’s friend, Miss Viner.”
Effie, still hanging on her governess’s arm, pressed herself closer with a little gesture of appropriation; and Miss Viner laid her hand on her pupil’s hair.
Darrow felt that Anna’s eyes had turned to him.