Perhaps had there been a convenient turning in the passage to separate them for a moment from the rest of the party, that charming little speech might have been rewarded; but fate was not so propitious. The passage appeared interminably long and straight, so there could not be any warmer expression of gratitude than words could give.
After a few moments Helena said again—"Now, Harry, you are to be very good and quiet, and if you are so, I will give you a reward in the shape of an invitation to our ball on this day week; but perhaps that is too far off. A cricket who goes about chirping from hearth to hearth might, you know, forget."
"How wicked you are, Lena!"
"Wicked, am I? Then, master cricket, you shan't have an invitation from me, and if you wait till you get one from Mrs. Elton, you'll wait for ever."
"Then the cricket will appear without one."
"Will he indeed! To be handed out by the servants! But I am going to be serious now, and please to be rational for a few minutes and listen to me. The invitations are only to be sent out to-morrow; mamma was not well enough to permit us to send them before; indeed we were beginning to fear that the ball would not come off at all. It would be vain to expect that mamma would send you an invitation, but Mary shall ask you to-day, and when we return home she can say that she has done so, and mamma will not be able to help it then. How good I am to plan all this for you, considering that it is quite indifferent to me whether you are there or not. I hope you are fully sensible of my disinterested goodness towards you, Mr. Caulfield."
"If I had but the opportunity, would I not make you pay for all this, Lena!"
She looked up innocently at him, and asked in a most apparently unconscious tone, "How, Harry?"
What a temptation was that upturned smiling face! and, with a sigh for the bonne bouche which he was obliged to relinquish, he said, "I declare, Lena, it is cruelty to torment a man so; but my time will come——"
She withdrew her hand hurriedly, exclaiming, "Here is a chapel; now we must be demure," and she followed the others with the air of a little Puritan, which tried Harry's gravity sadly.