She bent over the keys, her face hidden from him.
"You will not go away just yet ?" she asked softly.

"You are going to stay for a few days, at any rate ?" "Without a doubt," he assured her.

"I am altogether my own master." "Thank God," she murmured.
He leaned with his elbow against the top of the piano, looking down at her.

Since dinnertime she had fastened a large red rose in the front of her gown.
"Do you know that this is all rather mysterious ?" he said calmly.
"What is mysterious ?" she demanded.
"The atmosphere of the place: your uncle's queer aversion to my having the Tower; your visitor up-stairs, who fights with the servants while we are at dinner; your uncle himself, whose will seems to be law not only to you but to your brother, who must be of age, I should think, and who seems to have plenty of spirit." "We live here, both of us," she told him.

"He is our guardian." "Naturally," Hamel replied, "and yet, it may have been my fancy, of course, but at dinnertime I seemed to get a queer impression." "Tell it me ?" she insisted, her fingers breaking suddenly into a livelier melody.