“That was so long ago,” she said timidly—­yet confidingly.  “And I was a baby.  Couldn’t you—­couldn’t you forget it now?”

Melrose surveyed her.

“I suppose you like being at Duddon?” he asked her abruptly, without answering her question.

She clasped her hands fervently.

“It’s like heaven!  They’re so good to us.”

“No doubt!”—­the tone was sarcastic.  “Well, let them provide for you.  Who gave you those clothes?  Lady Tatham?”

She nodded.  Her lip trembled.  Her startled eyes looked at him piteously.

“You’ve been living at Lucca?”

“Near Lucca—­on the mountains.”

“H’m.  Is that all true—­about your grandfather?”

“That he’s ill?  Of course, it’s true!” she said indignantly.  “We don’t tell lies.  He’s had a stroke—­he’s dying.  And we could hardly give him any food he could eat.  You see—­”

She edged a little closer, and began a voluble, confidential account of their life in the mountains.  Her voice was thin and childish, but sweet; and every now and then she gave a half-frightened, half-excited laugh.  Melrose watched her frowning; but he did not stop her.  Her bright eyes and brows, with their touches of velvet black, the quick movement of her pink lips, the rose-leaf delicacy of her colour, seemed to hold him.  Among the pretty things with which the room was crowded she was the prettiest; and he probably was conscious of it.  Propped up against the French bureau stood a Watteau drawing in red chalk—­a sanguine—­he had bought in Paris on a recent visit.  The eyes of the old connoisseur went from the living face to the drawing, comparing them.

At last Felicia paused.  Her smiles died away.  She looked at him wistfully.

“Mother’s awfully sorry she—­she offended you so.  Won’t you forgive her now—­and poor Babbo—­about the little statue?”

She hardly dared breathe the last words, as she timidly dropped her eyes.

There were tears in her voice, and yet she was not very far from hysterical laughter.  The whole scene was so fantastic—­ridiculous!  The room with its lumber; its confusion of glittering things; this old man frowning at her—­for no reason!  For after all—­what had she done?  Even the contadini—­they were rough often—­they couldn’t read or write—­but they loved their grandchildren.

As he caught her reference to the bronze Hermes, Melrose’s face changed.  He rose, stretching out a hand toward a bell on the table.

“You must go!” he said, sharply.  “You ought never to have come.  You’ll get nothing by it.  Tell your mother so.  This is the second attack she has made on me—­through her tools.  If she attempts another, she may take the consequences!”

Felicia too stood up.  A rush of anger and despair choked her.

“And you won’t—­you won’t even say a kind word to me!” she said, panting.  “You won’t kiss me?”