"Oh, no!" she answered in her former tone, "it cannot annoy him. I feared so at first, as he wishes me not to see, or be seen, at present; but when I tell him how your lordship came, he will see it could not have been avoided. Besides, I told him of Lady Dora's introduction, and our all walking together yesterday."
"And what did he say?" asked the other, waking from surprise to surprise.
"Miles was very much annoyed with Lady Dora; he said, as a person experienced in the world's opinions, she ought not to have presented me to you, because——" She stopped, and coloured deeply, feeling it too delicate a subject to enter upon with a stranger. She had been so accustomed to speak of, hear of Lord Randolph as Dora's future husband, that he had seemed as already a cousin to her, though, in point of fact, almost a stranger. Poor Minnie had much worldly reserve to learn; besides, she was speaking as she knew herself, not as he suspected her; and there was nothing to awaken her rudely in his manner. She was as a somnambulist, speaking in her sleep, to the wakeful.
"Let me beg of you not to tell Tremenhere," he earnestly asked.
"I never conceal a thought from him," was her reply; "how pass an hour with him, and keep a secret in my heart? I should suffocate with the weight of it alone."
"I think I know Tremenhere better than even you can. Women rarely know men, as their friends read them; for your own sake, let me earnestly entreat secresy this once."
His earnestness made her tremble, and become serious. "I do not comprehend your lordship," she said with dignity; "have I done wrong in conversing freely with you?"
"Good heavens! no; I trust we may often thus converse again."
"Then I shall tell Miles as soon as he returns; he cannot but approve my receiving his friends with what courtesy I am mistress of. If I have been wanting in due reserve, my lord may excuse it—I am but a country bred girl."
"But the most charming one I ever met!" he warmly exclaimed, endeavouring to seize her hand; but Minnie's delicacy had taken the alarm, she drew back, and, laying her hand on the bell, said quietly—