And when she is trusted, she's bound to get the
better of the man in any of those relations!"
The dead silence that followed, the ominous joggle of a glass at the
speaker's elbow, the quick, sympathetic glance that Brant instinctively
felt was directed at his own face, and the abrupt change of subject,
could not but arrest his attention, even if he had overlooked the
speech. His face, however, betrayed nothing. It had never, however,
occurred to him before that his family affairs might be known--neither
had he ever thought of keeping them a secret. It seemed so purely a
personal and private misfortune, that he had never dreamed of its having
any public interest. And even now he was a little ashamed of what he
believed was his sensitiveness to mere conventional criticism, which,
with the instinct of a proud man, he had despised.
He was not far wrong in his sardonic intuition of the effect of his
prohibition upon Miss Faulkner's feelings. Certainly that young lady,
when not engaged in her mysterious occupation of arranging her uncle's
effects, occasionally was seen in the garden, and in the woods beyond.
Although her presence was the signal for the "oblique" of any lounging
"shoulder strap," or the vacant "front" of a posted sentry, she seemed
to regard their occasional proximity with less active disfavor.
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