"You're very, very kind. Yes, I've promised to marry Harry Tristram. Not yet, you know. And it isn't to be announced. But I've promised."
He stole a glance at her, and then another. She did not look merry indeed. Neeld knew his ignorance of feminine things, and made guesses with proper diffidence; but he certainly fancied she had been crying—or very near it—not so long ago. Yet the daughter of William Iver was sensible and not given to silly tears.
"I think I've done right," she said—as she had said when she wrote to Mina. "Everybody will be pleased. Father's very pleased." Suddenly she put out her hand and took hold of his, giving it a tight grip. "Oh, but, Mr Neeld, I've made somebody so unhappy."
"I dare say, my dear, I dare say. I was a young fellow once. I dare say."
"And he says nothing about it. He wished me joy—and he does wish me joy too. I've no right to talk to you, to tell you, or anything. I don't believe people think girls ever mind making men unhappy; but they do."
"If they like the men?" This suggestion at least was not too difficult for him.
"Yes, when they like them, when they're old friends, you know. I only spoke to him for a moment, I only just met him on the road. I don't suppose I shall ever talk to him about it, or about anything in particular, again." She squeezed Neeld's hand a second time, and then withdrew her own.
This was unknown country again for Mr Neeld; his sense of being lost grew more acute. These were not the sort of problems which had occupied his life; but they seemed now to him no less real, hardly less im
portant. It was only a girl wondering if she had done right. Yet he felt the importance of it.
"You can't help the unhappiness," he said. "You must go to the man you love, my dear."