Delighted with her mirth, he came to her, holding out his hands. She shook her head and leant back, looking at him.
"Sit as my mother did. You know. Yes, like that!" he cried.
She had obeyed him with a smile. Not to be denied now, he seized the hand that lay in her lap.
"A birthday! Yes, of course, you're twenty-one! Really mistress of it all now! And you don't know what to do with it, except spoil the arrangement of the furniture?"
She laughed low and luxuriously. "What am I to do with it?" she asked.
"Well, won't you give it all to me?" As he spoke he laughed and kissed her hand. "I've come to ask you for it. Here I am. I've come fortune-hunting to-night."
"It's all mine now, you say? Harry, take it without me."
"If I did, I'd burn it to the ground that it mightn't remind me of you."
"Yes, yes! That's what I've wanted to do!" she exclaimed, drawing her hand out of his and raising her arms a moment in the air. Addie Tristram's pose was gone, but Harry did not miss it now.
"Take it without you indeed! It's all for you and because of you."