'Oh, ah!' he said, and pocketed the weapon.
'Barking at people!' muttered Lord Wetherby in a querulous
undertone.
'What on earth are you doing, Dudley?' said Claire.
There was a note in her voice which both puzzled and pained Mr
Pickering, a note that seemed to suggest that she found herself in
imperfect sympathy with him. Her expression deepened the
suggestion. It was a cold expression, unfriendly, as if it was not
so keen a pleasure to Claire to look at him as it should be for a
girl to look at the man whom she is engaged to marry. He had
noticed the same note in her voice and the same hostile look in
her eye earlier in the evening. He had found her alone, reading a
letter which, as the stamp on the envelope showed, had come from
England. She had seemed so upset that he had asked her if it
contained bad news, and she had replied in the negative with so
much irritation that he had desisted from inquiries. But his own
idea was that she had had bad news from home. Mr Pickering still
clung to his early impression that her little brother Percy was
consumptive, and he thought the child must have taken a turn for
the worse. It was odd that she should have looked and spoken like
that then, and it was odd that she should look and speak like that
now. He had been vaguely disturbed then and he was vaguely
disturbed now.
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