“I only came this morning,” Beatrice said, as though to apologise for the disorder.
Unorna sank down in a corner of the sofa, shading her eyes from the bright lamp with her hand. She could not help looking at Beatrice, but she felt that she must not let her scrutiny be too apparent, nor her conversation too eager. Beatrice was proud and strong, and could doubtless be very cold and forbidding when she chose.
“And do you expect to be here long?” Unorna asked, as Beatrice established herself at the other end of the sofa.
“I cannot tell,” was the answer. “I may be here but a few days, or I may have to stay a month.
“I lived here for years,” said Unorna thoughtfully. “I suppose it would be impossible now--I should die of apathy and inanition.” She laughed in a subdued way, as though respecting Beatrice’s mourning. “But I was young then,” she added, suddenly withdrawing her hand from her eyes, so that the full light of the lamp fell upon her.
She chose to show that she, too, was beautiful, and she knew that Beatrice had as yet hardly seen her face as they passed through the gloomy corridors. It was an instinct of vanity, and yet, for her purpose, it was the right one. The effect was sudden and unexpected, and Beatrice looked at her almost fixedly, in undisguised admiration.
“Young then!” she exclaimed. “You are young now!”
“Less young than I was then,” Unorna answered with a little sigh, followed instantly by a smile.
“I am five and twenty,” said Beatrice, woman enough to try and force a confession from her new acquaintance.
“Are you? I would not have thought it--we are nearly of an age--quite, perhaps, for I am not yet twenty-six. But then, it is not the years--” She stopped suddenly.
Beatrice wondered whether Unorna were married or not. Considering the age she admitted and her extreme beauty it seemed probable that she must be. It occurred to her that the acquaintance had been made without any presentation, and that neither knew the other’s name.
“Since I am a little the younger,” she said, “I should tell you who I am.”
Unorna made a slight movement. She was on the point of saying that she knew already--and too well.
“I am Unorna.” She could not help a sort of cold defiance that sounded in her tone as she pronounced the only name she could call hers.