Page:Dark Hester.djvu/100

as though the ceiling were too low for him, and she saw that he was looking across at her as he had looked the first time they had met; and recalling her impression then, a slight feeling of discomfort grew in her as she became aware that even after resuming his seat he continued to look at her and not at his book. Perhaps he did not know, sitting against the light as he was, that she observed this, but she suspected suddenly, as his silence and his scrutiny persisted, that he did know, and perhaps expected acquiescence on her part. Again old memories were revived in her, of pursuing suitors. She remembered even, while she chattered on to Celia and Norah, all unaware, the man in India, Charlie’s friend and brother-officer, who had dared one day to make mad love to her in his absence. She remembered her rage and his folly of despair, and as she sat there before Captain Ingpen a little flame of angry colour rose up to her cheek, anger with herself that this stranger should have the power of awakening such memories in her. He sat crouched a little forward, a finger between the pages of his book, raising his cup to his lips now and then, and reaching it out once over Norah’s shoulder, to ask in the coolest tone for a fresh one, and, as the flame of the old memory sank, Monica was able to