“Not before? Well, be punctual, there’s a good fellow. She’s worth an effort.”
I watched him, as he rose with a stifled sigh and busied himself over lighting our bedroom candle. In the gusty dance of the flame his eyes seemed to change and glint red like beads of garnet. I had no notion why, but a thrill ran through me and with it a sudden impulse to seize him by the hand and exclaim: “Thank God, we’re friends, Duke!”
He startled a little and looked full in my face, and then I knew what had moved me.
Friends were we; but heaven pity the man who made him his enemy!
CHAPTER XXII.
THE SHADOW OF THE STORM.
Dolly met me the next morning, looking shy and half-frightened as a child caught fruit-picking. She gave me her hand with no show of heartiness, and withdrew it at once as if its fingers were the delicate antennae of her innocent soul and I her natural enemy.
“Where shall we go, Renny?” she asked, glancing timidly up at me.
“To Epping again, Dolly, dear. I’ve set my heart on it.”
She seemed at first as if about to ask me why; then to shrink from a subject she dreaded appearing to have a leading interest in.
“Very well,” she answered, faintly. “It will be lovely there now.”