"Buy what, my dear Ridley?"
"These chairs; I always said they were such uneasy ones, no one could sit on them long—you see Mr. Pendarves can't endure them."
I was very glad when Seymour sat down again; when he did, he leaned his elbows on the table, and gazed in my face as if he would have read the very bottom of my soul. But hope seemed to have supplanted despair. Mr. Ridley now suddenly rose, and holding his hand to his side, cried, "Oh!" in such a comic, yet pathetic manner, that though his wife really believed he was in pain, she could not help laughing; then, seizing a candle, he went oh-ing and limping out of the room, leaning on her arm, and declaring he believed he must go to bed, if we would excuse him.
There was no mistaking his motive, and Seymour was not slow to profit by the opportunity thus good-naturedly offered him.
"Helen!" he exclaimed, seating himself by me, and seizing my hand, "is what I heard true—am I the most wretched of men—is this hand promised to De Walden?"
"No—not yet promised."
"Then you mean to give it to him?"
"Certainly not now."
"Why that emphasis on now?"
"Because I am sure I do not love him sufficiently."