Berkley sprang to relieve her of the big book and a box full of silhouettes, miniatures, and daguerreotypes.

They placed the family depository upon the table and then bent over it together.
Ailsa remained standing by the window, looking steadily at nothing, a burning sensation in both cheeks.
At intervals, through the intensity of her silence, she heard Celia's fresh, sweet laughter, and Berkley's humorous and engaging voice.

She glanced sideways at the back of his dark curly head where it bent beside Celia's over the album.

What an insolently reckless head it was! She thought that she had never before seen the back of any man's head so significant of character--or the want of it.

And the same quality--or the lack of it--now seemed to her to pervade his supple body, his well-set shoulders, his voice, every movement, every feature--something everywhere about him that warned and troubled.
[Illustration: "What an insolently reckless head it was!"] Suddenly the blood burnt her cheeks with a perfectly incomprehensible desire to see his face again.