it seemed to me a nice, more than brotherly thing to say.
The frown cleared slowly from her brow and I heard a faint sigh. She fell to her brooding again; but I could see that it was by no means the cheerless brooding out of which I had stirred her, and I was content. In truth, I was more than content, I was glad that I had told her, for I had ascertained that her precocity was purely a precocity of the intelligence and not sentimental; she was at any rate fancy free. Moreover I had lost all resentment against Chelubai and Bottiger.
Things went quietly for a while. Outwardly there seemed to be no change in our relations; but I was dimly aware that a faint constraint was more and more changing the old brotherly and sisterly relations between me and Angel; and now and again I observed signs of a growing hostility between Chelubai and Bottiger. I thought myself bound to keep on friendly terms with Dolly Delamere, and twice or thrice I took her out to dinner and the theatre, but I began to long for the inevitable day when she would fall in love with one of her own kind and consign me to neglect and oblivion.
Then of a sudden we were wrenched from our quiet habit of life and stirred to a new, bustling activity by another philanthropic enterprise. One morning Chelubai received a letter from Honest
