“Very well, I will,” he answered with sudden gravity. “You say you want an intimate, confidential, particular friend, and have done me the honour to offer me the post.”
She nodded.
“I beg to decline it in the most unqualified manner. I am your friend in the best sense of the word—I would cut off my right arm to serve you—but a friend at a distance, one that you will seldom hear of, much less see. The friendship of which you have visions is out of the question between us, and only possible between husband and wife. Be satisfied with your own arrangements; we are ward and guardian, nothing more. Do not be vexed with me for speaking plainly; you asked me to be serious, and I am serious. It seems to me that you do not know your own mind two consecutive hours, but I am not so changeable. You had everything in your hands the other day; it was a question of now or never. Two words would have bridged the gulf between us; you did not speak those two words, and now the occasion for them will never occur again—you let slip your last opportunity.”
“I do not in the least understand you,” she faltered.
“If you reflect for a moment, I think you will remember the two words—the key to the riddle.—Here comes Geoffrey,” he observed, as Geoffrey, in a cool gray suit, with a flower in his button-hole, came bounding towards them.
“Well, upon my word,” he exclaimed, “I’ve been watching you two for the last twenty minutes, talking away nineteen to the dozen, and had I not previously known I should have declared it one of the most promising flirtations I ever interrupted.”
“You are always thinking of flirtations,” said Alice, hastily turning away. “Come along, and help me to gather some plums; Helen is waiting for the basket.”
CHAPTER IX.
“SIR REGINALD’S EYES ARE OPENED.”
“Alice, I have such a crow to pick with you!” exclaimed Mrs. Mayhew, bursting into her room the same afternoon, as she was dressing for lawn-tennis.
“With me?” pausing with one arm in the sleeve of her dress. “Pick away, I daresay I shall find a bag to put the feathers in.”