"Impossible!" he cried.
"Not at all impossible. She has seen few men in her short life—she has been very carefully guarded, in spite of your sneer at my want of caution—and the attentions of a man like yourself were quite new to her. What could you expect?"
"Attentions!" groaned Hubert. "I never paid her any attentions, save as a cousin and a friend."
"Exactly; but she did not understand."
There was a short silence. He stood with his arm on the mantelpiece, looking through the window at the snow-covered landscape outside. His face had turned pale, and his lips were firmly set. Presently he said, in a low tone—
"You must be mistaken. Surely she can never have let you know what her feelings are on such a point? You say that she does not confide in you. How can you know?"
"There are other ways of reading a girl's heart as well as a man's coarse way of having everything in black and white," said Flossy composedly. "I am sure of it. She is in love with you, and that is why she looks so ill."
"It must not be! You must let her know—gently, but decidedly—that I am not the man for her—that there is an unsurmountable barrier between us."
"What is it? Are you married already?"
"Florence"—there was a sound of anguish in his voice, "how could I marry a girl whose father I——"