"My heart is weak, I believe; nothing organic. It is very warm, and I
never can bear heat. You look tired yourself."
She nodded absently. "Yes, I have been away--at the Bertie Monson's.
Nelly Monson always gives me a headache, she talks so loud. And my room
was under the nursery. I do hate children."
Carron caught his breath. She was actually talking civilly to him. And,
then, remembering his request to her mother, he, for a second, hated
Lady Kingsmead with a bitter and senseless hatred. Was Brigit, after
all, only talking to him as a favour to her mother? But a second's
reflection showed him the folly of this idea. Had Brigit ever done
anything to please her mother? Never.
One of the two women-guests sat down at the piano and began to play,
very softly, an old song of Tosti's. Everybody listened. A hansom
jingled by and a bicycle's sharp bell was a loud noise in the
after-dinner silence.
Joyselle was standing by a table, absently balancing on his forefinger a
long, broad, ivory paper-knife. He was, Brigit remembered, curiously
adept in balancing, and once she had seen him go through, for Tommy's
amusement, a whole series of the kind, from the classic broomstick on
his chin, to blowing three feathers about the room at a time, allowing
none of them to fall.
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