and laughs to herself. She seemed to laugh with a certain proud,
sinister recklessness. His hands trembled with desire.
So they were engaged. He bought her a ring, an emerald set in tiny
diamonds. Miss Frost looked grave and silent, but would not openly
deny her approval.
"You like him, don't you? You don't dislike him?" Alvina insisted.
"I don't dislike him," replied Miss Frost. "How can I? He is a
perfect stranger to me."
And with this Alvina subtly contented herself. Her father treated
the young man with suave attention, punctuated by fits of jerky
hostility and jealousy. Her mother merely sighed, and took sal
volatile.
To tell the truth, Alvina herself was a little repelled by the man's
love-making. She found him fascinating, but a trifle repulsive. And
she was not sure whether she hated the repulsive element, or whether
she rather gloried in it. She kept her look of arch, half-derisive
recklessness, which was so unbearably painful to Miss Frost, and so
exciting to the dark little man. It was a strange look in a refined,
really virgin girl--oddly sinister. And her voice had a curious
bronze-like resonance that acted straight on the nerves of her
hearers: unpleasantly on most English nerves, but like fire on the
different susceptibilities of the young man--the darkie, as people
called him.
But after all, he had only six weeks in England, before sailing to
Sydney. He suggested that he and Alvina should marry before he
sailed. Miss Frost would not hear of it. He must see his people
first, she said.
So the time passed, and he sailed. Alvina missed him, missed the
extreme excitement of him rather than the human being he was. Miss
Frost set to work to regain her influence over her ward, to remove
that arch, reckless, almost lewd look from the girl's face. It was a
question of heart against sensuality. Miss Frost tried and tried to
wake again the girl's loving heart--which loving heart was certainly
not occupied by _that man_. It was a hard task, an anxious, bitter
task Miss Frost had set herself.
But at last she succeeded. Alvina seemed to thaw. The hard shining
of her eyes softened again to a sort of demureness and tenderness.
The influence of the man was revoked, the girl was left uninhabited,
empty and uneasy.
She was due to follow her Alexander in three months' time, to
Sydney. Came letters from him, en route--and then a cablegram from
Australia. He had arrived. Alvina should have been preparing her
trousseau, to follow. But owing to her change of heart, she lingered
indecisive.
"_Do_ you love him, dear?" said Miss Frost with emphasis, knitting
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