ping the woodwork lightly with his fingers. They were all silent, and the silence was acutely uncomfortable to Henry, at least.
“Was it very dull, William?” Katharine suddenly asked, with a complete change of tone and a little gesture of her hand.
“Of course it was dull,” William said sulkily.
“Well, you stay and talk to Henry, and I’ go down,” she replied.
She rose as she spoke, and as she turned to leave the room, she laid her hand, with a curiously caressing gesture, upon Rodney’s shoulder. Instantly Rodney clasped her hand in his, with such an impulse of emotion that Henry was annoyed, and rather ostentatiously opened a book.
“I shall come down with you,” said William, as she drew back her hand, and made as if to pass him.
“Oh no,” she said hastily. “You stay here and talk to Henry.”
“Yes, do,” said Henry, shutting up his book again. His invitation was polite, without being precisely cordial. Rodney evidently hesitated as to the course he should pursue, but seeing Katharine at the door, he exclaimed:
“No. I want to come with you.”
She looked back, and said in a very commanding tone, and with an expression of authority upon her face:
“It’s useless for you to come. I shall go to bed in ten minutes. Good night.”
She nodded to them both, but Henry could not help noticing that her last nod was in his direction. Rodney sat down rather heavily.
His mortification was so obvious that Henry scarcely liked to open the conversation with some remark of a literary character. On the other hand, unless he checked him, Rodney might begin to talk about his feelings, and irreticence is apt to be extremely painful, at any rate in prospect. He therefore adopted a middle course;
