She looked so bewitching so forlorn, his heart could not help softening to her.
“If I do not,” he said, “it must be on softer terms than yet.”
“Was my hand so hard?” she pleaded penitently.
“’Tis for the lips, not the ear to decide,” said he. “Give it me, if you would hear kinder news of it.”
She hung back a little, then reluctantly acquiesced. He mouthed the flushed palm, till she snatched it away.
“Be good, please,” she said.
“It blushes for its naughty deed,” he declared. “But it is forgiven.”
“Now,” she said, “will you not be serious and give me good advice?”
“That is not always palatable, you know.”
“It is the way with healing drugs.”