Mrs. Hale, who had entered the room unperceived.
"Dear me! How portentous! Really, I almost feel as if I were
interrupting a tete-a-tete between yourself and some old flame. I
haven't heard anything so old-fashioned and conservative as that sigh
since I have been in California. I thought you never had any Past out
here?"
Fortunately his face was between her and the light, and the unmistakable
expression of annoyance and impatience which was passed over it was
spared her. There was, however, still enough dissonance in his manner to
affect her quick feminine sense, and when she drew nearer to him it was
with a certain maiden-like timidity.
"You are not worse, Mr. Lee, I hope? You have not over-exerted
yourself?"
"There's little chance of that with one leg--if not in the grave at
least mummified with bandages," he replied, with a bitterness new to
him.
"Shall I loosen them? Perhaps they are too tight. There is nothing so
irritating to one as the sensation of being tightly bound."
The light touch of her hand upon the rug that covered his knees,
the thoughtful tenderness of the blue-veined lids, and the delicate
atmosphere that seemed to surround her like a perfume cleared his face
of its shadow and brought back the reckless fire into his blue eyes.
"I suppose I'm intolerant of all bonds," he said, looking at her
intently, "in others as well as myself!"
Whether or not she detected any double meaning in his words, she was
obliged to accept the challenge of his direct gaze, and, raising her
eyes to his, drew back a little from him with a slight increase of
color. "I was afraid you had heard bad news just now."
"What would you call bad news?" asked Lee, clasping his hands behind
his head, and leaning back on the sofa, but without withdrawing his eyes
from her face.
"Oh, any news that would interrupt your convalescence, or break up our
little family party," said Mrs. Hale. "You have been getting on so well
that really it would seem cruel to have anything interfere with our life
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