“Why, your talents, I confess, seem wasted in this dull corner of the palace. There are livelier quarters for their exercise—the Duke of York’s, for instance.”
He took his hands from her shoulders; but their grip might still have imprisoned her, so rigid remained her attitude.
“You won’t let me see the King?” she said.
“Hey-day!” jeered he. “Not short of the very highest will content this country chip. But nothing for nothing, say I.”
She stood quite motionless, conning him—stood for a full minute, without a word. And then she shook her shoulders, and laughed, and held out her hand to him.
“Well, then, good-bye, George,” she said. “I think you’re hard on me; but I bear no malice, and we’ll part friends, won’t we?”
“Advice isn’t dismissal,” said Hamilton; “and you’re not my guest.”
“No, I know,” she answered. “But, truth is, his lordship was equally emphatic about my wanting a change—or perhaps it was himself wanted it; I’m not sure. Well, I’ll take a day to consider of it. You wouldn’t think better of me, I suppose, if in the meantime I were able to put you right about a certain question you’ve been puzzling yourself over?”
“What question, fubbs?” He felt quite kindly to her again, since she had yielded so submissively to his suggestion. The little rogue’s face of her, drawn in silver-point and just touched with pink, looked a sweet spiritual flower in the moonlight.
“O, I mustn’t tell,” she said, “or it would spoil everything.”