I made no answer, but still looked her anxiously in the face.

For a few seconds her nimble delicate fingers nervously folded and refolded the letter from her aunt, then she abruptly changed her position.
"The sooner I write, the sooner it will be over," she said, and hurriedly turned away to the paper-case on the side-table.
How was the change in her manner to be rightly interpreted?
Was she hurt by what I had said, or was she secretly so much affected by it, in the impressionable state of her mind at that moment, as to be incapable of exerting a young girl's customary self-control?
Her looks, actions, and language might bear either interpretation.

One striking omission had marked her conduct when I had referred to George's return.

She had not inquired when I expected him back.

Was this indifference?
Surely not.
Surely indifference would have led her to ask the conventionally civil question which ninety-nine persons out of a hundred would have addressed to me as a matter of course.