Nigel responded without words, and she crossed the hall into the morning-room, dropping on the nearest chair with a vanquished look. "I didn't know a few days in one's bedroom could make one so horribly weak. I feel just like a teetotum, ready to go down. What are you thinking about?" Weak as she felt, her eyes scanned him with their usual penetration, and Nigel could not stand it. He turned abruptly, and walked into the bow-window, taking a book from the table, and making believe to read it. Fulvia might think him ill-tempered if she liked. He was not able to endure being questioned. Fulvia made no further attempt at the moment. "Poor boy!" she said to herself, and a softened look came into her face. She was accustomed of old to think of him as a boy, and to count herself a little older in mind, a little better able to manage things for him as well as for herself than he was; and she had not yet shaken off the old habit of thought. But when he came back from the bow-window, holding his open book in one hand, it was no boy's face that met her glance. He was very pale; and the compression of the lips, the bent brows, were unmistakably those of a man. "Has Mr. Carden-Cox been saying anything to worry you?" she asked. She had no business to ask the question, and she knew it, even before saying the words; but at the moment the temptation was too strong. And at once Fulvia knew that she had lost ground with him. She had done the very thing for which she lately had so blamed Anice—had catechised where she held no right to catechise. Nigel was silent, but his gravity held now a tinge of displeasure. Fulvia had far too much tact to persevere in a mistake. "I beg your pardon," she said. "It was rude of me. Of course I ought not to expect an answer." Yet she did expect, and was disappointed that none came. "Did you say you wished to speak to my father?" inquired Nigel, after a pause. "Yes. I'll go to the study. He is there, isn't be? One can so seldom get hold of him alone—I mean, without madre. I don't mean you." She paused and looked at him earnestly. "Am I forgiven?" "For what?" "You know. Meddling in your concerns." "Sisters are supposed to be at liberty to say what they like," Nigel replied, smiling; but it was not his usual smile. "And brothers, too," Fulvia added, while the word "sisters" fell upon her coldly. Did he mean it? Or was he speaking without thought? She seemed so tottering that Nigel had no choice but to offer her again the use of his left arm, when she left the room. "Absurd!" she said, with a laugh, as she accepted it. "I, who am always strong! But I shall be all right in a day or two." "I doubt if you are so robust as you profess to be. I told the girls so one day."