"I promise, father!"
The General was pleased with the homage and grace of this action, and rising placed a hand on Ralph's shoulder, more cordially than he had done for years.
"Are you sure she cares for you, Ralph? I have seen nothing to suggest the idea."
"I think, indeed I am quite certain that she does not like any one else near so much," answered the young man, reluctant to compromise Lina's delicacy by a broader confession.
"Young men are always confident," said the General with a bland smile. "I think that faith in woman was the first delusion that I gave up. Still it is pleasant while it lasts. Heaven forbid that I should brush the bloom from your grapes, my boy. So you really think that mamma's little protégé knows her own mind, and that my son knows his?"
A pang came to the ardent heart of the youth as he listened. Another golden thread snapped under the cold-blooded worldliness of that crafty old man.
General Harrington looked in his face, and analyzed the play of those handsome features, exactly as he had tasted the game-birds and champagne a half hour before. The same relish was in both enjoyments, only one was the epicureanism of a mind that found pleasure in dissecting a young heart, and the other, quite as important to him, was a delicious sensuality.
And Ralph stood under this scrutiny with a cloud on his fine brow and a faint quiver of the lip. It was agony to think of Lina without perfect confidence in her affection for himself. Yet he was so young, and his father had seen so much. If he found no evidence of Lina's attachment to himself, it might be that all was a delusion.
The old man read these thoughts, and took upon himself a gentle air of composure.
"These things often happen when young people are thrown together in the same house, Ralph. It is a pleasant dream. Both parties wake up, and there is no harm done. Don't take the thing to heart, it isn't worth while."