“Love you, Robert? Mr. Mahone, I mean!”
“Oh, call me Robert; do call me Robert!”
“Well, I will! You asked if I loved you? I who never lifted admiring eyes to another man; had you no eyes to read mine, no heart to hear how mine was beating like a—a trip-hammer against my side? Did you never suspect?”
“I never dared to hope; but now—now I am the happiest man alive! You will not talk of other people after this.”
There was a tone of anxiety in this last question quite as sincere as the protestations he had made; but Ellen did not observe it.
“I shall talk nor think of no one but you, Robert.”
Some one knocked at the parlor-door, rather sturdily, and broke up this pleasant scene, which might have lasted for hours, but for that. Mahone started up, and opened the door, where he found Boyce flushed with impatience.
“I thought you was never coming out,” he said, rudely enough. “I have got business to attend to, and can’t sit waiting here. If you’ve got any more to say, say it now.”
“I’ll walk with you, Boyce,” answered Robert, “if Miss Post will excuse me.”
Miss Post bowed with condescension, and the two young men went into the street together.