The laugh was still on her lips as she mounted the steps. The hall-door
stood open, and her father's voice hailed her from within.
"Hallo, Nan, you scapegrace! What mad-cap trick will you be up to next,
I wonder?"
There was a decided note of uneasiness behind the banter of his tone
which her quick ear instantly detected. She looked up sharply and in a
second, as if at a touch of magic, the laughter all died out of her face.
A man was standing in the glow of the lamp-light slightly behind her
father, a man of medium height and immense breadth, with a clean-shaven,
heavy-browed face, and sombre eyes that watched her silently.
CHAPTER VI
Nan was ever quick in all her ways, and it was very seldom that she was
disconcerted. Between the moment of her reaching the top step and that
in which she entered the hall, she flashed from laughing childhood to
haughty womanhood. The dignity with which she offered her hand to her
husband was in its way superb.
"An unexpected pleasure!" was her icy comment.
He took the hand, looking closely into her eyes. He made no attempt to
draw her nearer, and Nan remained at arm's-length. Yet something in his
scrutiny affected her, for a shiver went through her, proudly though she
met it.
"It is cold," she said, by way of explanation. "It is freezing hard, and
we came all the way by road."
"Yes," he said, in his deep, slow voice.
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