At eleven o'clock next morning, Arnold Jacks was announced. Irene,
who sat with Olga in the drawing-room, had directed that her visitor
should be shown into the library, and there she received him. Arnold
stepped eagerly towards her; not smiling indeed, but with the
possibility of a smile manifest in every line of his countenance.
There could hardly have been a stronger contrast with his manner of
the day before yesterday. For this Irene had looked. Seeing
precisely what she expected, her eyes fell; she gave a careless
hand; she could not speak.
Arnold talked, talked. He said the proper things, and said them
well; to things the reverse of proper, not so much as the faintest
reference. This duty discharged, he spoke of the house he had taken;
his voice grew animated; at length the latent smile stole out
through his eyes and spread to his lips. Irene kept silence.
Respecting her natural sadness, the lover made his visit brief, and
retired with an air of grave satisfaction.
CHAPTER XXVI
Olga knew that by her mother's death she became penniless. The
income enjoyed by Mrs. Hannaford under the will of her sister in
America was only for life by allowing a third of it to her husband,
she had made saving impossible, and, as she left no will, her
daughter could expect only such trifles as might legally fall to her
share when things were settled. To her surviving parent, the girl
was of course no more than a stranger.
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