“I thought we were to be strangers?” he returned, coolly and politely removing her fingers.
With a gesture of impatience Alice turned away, struggling hard to repress her tears, and with a fair assumption of dignity endeavoured to open the gate which a moment before had closed itself with a bang. She could hardly see as she bungled at the bolt.
“Allow me!” said her husband, starting forward to her assistance. To her unutterable dismay and disgust, one of her too ready tears fell with a splash on his slim brown hand. It had the effect of melting him at once. He gazed at Alice steadfastly, and with a softer look in his dark eyes than they had known for many a day.
“You foolish girl! if you really think my friendship worth having—do you not know very well that it is yours, and that, in spite of everything, I am always your best friend? How can I be otherwise? Much and often as I have wished it, I am not one of those who can forget.”
“Nor are you one of those who can forgive!”
“How can you tell?”
“How can you ask me such a question?”
“Well, we won’t argue about it. You say you want a friend?”
“I often want a friend to advise me—someone older, wiser, and better than I am.”
“I can hardly flatter myself that you allude to me,” he said, surveying his wife with the gravest astonishment.