"Indeed, you cannot be insane enough to drive that horse such a night as this weather threatens. If go you will, in the face of a coming rain, leave Wildfire here, and drive one of the carriage-horses instead. I shall be uneasy if you start with that vicious, unmanageable incarnation of lightning. Let me ring the bell and direct Andrew to make the change."
She stepped into the parlour adjoining, and laid her fingers on the bell-cord, but he snatched up the hand and kissed it several times.
"No! I'll be hanged if I don't drive my own pearl of Arabia! I can manage him well enough; and, beside, what do you care whether he breaks my neck or not? Without compunction you broke my heart, which is much the greater catastrophe."
"Come into the library; you don't know what you are saying."
She drew him into the room, where a warm fire burned cheerfully, and made him sit down.
"Where did you go last night when you left here? Tell me."
"To Harry Neal's; a party of us were invited there to drink egg-nog, and, of course, found something stronger afterward. Then we had a game or so of poker, and ——, the grand finale is that I have had a deuced headache all day. Ah, my sweet saint! how shocked you are, to be sure! Now, don't lecture, or I shall be off like a flash."
Without answering, she rang the bell and quietly looped back the heavy crimson curtains.
"What is that for? Have you sent for John or old Nellie to carry me upstairs, like other bad boys sent to bed in disgrace without even the cold comfort of supper?"
"Hush, Hugh! hush."