Some moments of endearments interesting to the participants but not edifying in narration followed upon this assertion, and then the little stream of lover-talk purled on again.
"Oh, Mr. Fairfield," May began with utter irrelevancy, "I—"
"You promised not to call me that," he interrupted.
"But it's so strange to say Dick. Well, Dick, then—"
The slight interruption of a caress having been got over, she went on with her shattered observation.
"What was I going to say? You put me all out, with your 'Dick'—I do think it's the dearest name!—Stop! I know what I was going to say. I was frightened almost to death when Mrs. Neligage said the Count wrote 'Love in a Cloud.' Oh, I wanted to get under the tea-table!"
"But you didn't really think he wrote my letters?"
"I couldn't believe it; but I didn't know what to think. Then when he wore a red carnation the next day, I thought I should die. I thought anyway he'd read the letter; and that's what made me so meek when Mrs. Neligage took hold of me."
"But you never suspected that I wrote the book?" Fairfield asked.
"Oh, I don't know. Sometimes it seems to me as if I really did know all the time. Don't you remember how we talked about the book at Mrs. Harbinger's tea?"