The accumulated impatience and nervousness of the whole morning disturbed his pulses and put a weight upon his tongue; he spoke with awkward indecision, held himself awkwardly.  His own voice sounded boorish to him after Cecily’s accents.

Cecily began to speak of how she had spent the day.  Her aunt was making purchases—­was later in returning than had been expected.  Then she asked for an account of Elgar’s doings since they last met.  The conversation grew easier Reuben began to recover his natural voice, and to lose disagreeable self-consciousness in the delight of hearing Cecily and meeting her look.  Had he known her better, he would have observed that she spoke with unusual diffidence, that she was not quite so self-possessed a. of wont, and that her manner was deficient in the frank gaiety which as a rule made its great charm.  Her tone softened itself in questioning; she listened so attentively that, when he had ceased speaking, her eyes always rose to his, as if she had expected something further.

“Who is the young artist that lives here?” Elgar inquired.  “I met him at Pompeii, and to-day came upon him here in the courtyard.  A slight, rather boyish fellow.”

“I think you mean Mr. Marsh,” replied Cecily, smiling.  “He has recently been at Pompeii, I know.”

“You are on friendly terms with him?”

“Not on unfriendly,” she answered, with amusement.

Elgar averted his face.  Instantly the flow of his blood was again turbid; he felt an inclination to fling out some ill-mannered remark.

“You must come in contact with all kinds of odd people in a place like this.”

“One or two are certainly odd,” was the reply, in a gentle tone; “but most of them are very pleasant to be with occasionally.  Naturally we see more of the Bradshaws than of any one else.  There’s a family named Denyer—­a lady with three daughters; I don’t think you would dislike them.  Mr. Marsh is their intimate friend.”

It was all but as though she pleaded against a mistaken judgment which troubled her.  To Mallard she had spoken of her fellow-boarders in quite a different way, with merry though kindly criticism, or in the strain of generous idealization which so often marked her language.

“Do you know anything of his work?” Elgar pursued.

“I have seen a few of his water-colour drawings.”

“He showed you them?”

“No; one of the Miss Denyers did.  He had given them to her”

“Oh!” He at once brightened.  “And how did they strike you?”

“I’m sorry to say they didn’t interest me much.  But I have no right to sit in judgment.”

Elgar had the good taste to say nothing more on the subject.  He let his eyes rest on her down-turned face for a moment.

“You see a good deal of Miriam, I’m glad to hear.”

“I am sometimes afraid I trouble her by going too often.”

“Have no such fear.  I wish you were living under the same roof with her.  No one’s society could do her so much good as yours.  The poor girl has too long been in need of such an aid to rational cheerfulness.”