For to expose Miss
Felicia's inadequacies and enlarge on her ineligibility for the position
of feminine Chief of the Staff, struck her as unworthy, a meanness to
which, under existing circumstances, she could not condescend to stoop.
Carteret looked up, to be entranced not only by the fair spectacle of
her youth but by her delicious little air of shame and self-reproach.
Evidently she had caught herself out in some small naughtiness--was both
penitent and defiant, at once admitting her fault and pleading for
indulgence. He suspected some thought at the back of her mind which he
could neither exactly seize nor place. She baffled him with her changes
of mood and of direction--coming close and then slipping from under his
hand. This humour was surely new in her. She would not leave him alone,
would not let him rest. Had she developed, since last he had converse
with her, into a practised coquette?
"Look here, dear witch," he said, making a return upon himself, and
manfully withstanding the sweet provocation of her near neighbourhood.
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