She knew he looked at her and she looked back at him, now with a different smile--how many had she?--frank and friendly.
"I do like being here," she said, and clasped her restless hands behind her back.
"That's Janet's house among the larches," he said.
The dogs greeted them, and then Janet's tall figure slipped through the trees.
Shyness took hold of Theresa, and when she sat in the dark kitchen she was conscious again of the mystery of woods. The larches were close to the window, scratching the panes, and the room was full of shadows.
Janet did not try to talk, but, having seated Theresa by the fire, she took her stool on the other side of the hearth and scrutinized her keenly, while Alexander leaned in the door-way, reading. Theresa could think of nothing to say, and decided that if these two were content with silence there was no need for her to break it; so she looked into the fire, at Janet's face and the plates on the dresser, at the fire again, at Alexander and the lean hands holding his book.
She had been free and happy outside with him, and now she was uneasy, fettered.
Alexander closed his book. "But you're going to stay to dinner. Isn't she, Janet?"
"Of course." She looked at Theresa in her brooding, unsmiling way. "I like to have you here. Your father's a friend of mine."
"Did he ever tell you that dream of Janet's?" Alexander asked.
"The one about the birds? Oh yes, he told me that." She smiled. "I think he tells me everything."
Slightly frowning, Theresa looked at Alexander. "Must I stay?"
"I thought, if you would, I'd take you afterwards to a place I know. Will you come? It's a fine place."
Janet fetched food from the larder while Laura, the little maid, with her arms bare beyond the elbow, laid the table and cast casual remarks at Alexander in a pretty monotone. She herself was pretty, but Alexander, reading again, hardly looked at her. He murmured his assents and "no's" and interjections into the book, while she told him how someone in the village had driven into town, and the white horse had fallen and cut its knees, and it was a good horse and a new one. "So they'll have to bide home till its knees are mended, and that's awkward for them with their coal and all to fetch."