He was painfully struck with her
appearance and demeanour. She seemed to have lost much of her beautiful
vigour and bloom of health, like a flower that has been for some time
cut from its stem; and she, who had been wont to be ready and gay of
speech, was now completely silent, yet without constraint, and as if
wrapt in a dream.
"What has come over Nora?" asked Lefevre of his mother when they had
gone to the drawing-room.
"Ah," said Lady Lefevre, "you have noticed something, have you? Do you
find her very changed, then?"
"Very much changed."
"It's this attachment of hers to Julius. I want to have a talk with you
about it presently. She seems scarcely to live when he is not with her.
She sits like that always when he is gone, and appears only to dream and
wait,--wait with her life as if suspended till he comes back."
"Has it, indeed, got so far as that?" said her son with concern. "I had
better have a word or two with Julius about it."
Just then Mr Courtney was announced, and there were introductions on
this side and on that. He turned to be introduced to Lady Mary, and for
the time Lefevre forgot his sister, so engrossed was he with the altered
aspect of his friend.
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