She stood up, quietly, and waited. The rough hardihood of the ring fell from him like a garment: he blushed deeply, and did not know what to do. Nor did she; but without willing it she came a step closer to him, and turned up her face towards his. He, nearly blind with confusion, put his arms about her and kissed her. Suddenly she broke loose from his arms, seized the lapels of his coat tightly in her hands, and leaned back until she nearly hung from him with all her weight.
“Cashel,” she said, “we are the silliest lovers in the world, I believe—we know nothing about it. Are you really fond of me?”
She recovered herself immediately, and made no further demonstration of the kind. He remained shy, and was so evidently anxious to go, that she presently asked him to leave her for a while, though she was surprised to feel a faint pang of disappointment when he consented.
On leaving the house he hurried to the address which his mother had given him: a prodigious building in Westminster, divided into residential flats, to the seventh floor of which he ascended in a lift. As he stepped from it he saw Lucian Webber walking away from him along a corridor. Obeying a sudden impulse, he followed, and overtook him just as he was entering a room. Lucian, finding that some one was resisting his attempt to close the door, looked out, recognized Cashel, turned white, and hastily retreated into the apartment, where, getting behind a writing-table, he snatched a revolver from a drawer. Cashel recoiled, amazed and frightened, with his right arm up as if to ward off a blow.
“Hullo!” he cried. “Drop that d—d thing, will you? If you don’t, I’ll shout for help.”
“If you approach me I will fire,” said Lucian, excitedly. “I will teach you that your obsolete brutality is powerless against the weapons science has put into the hands of civilized men. Leave my apartments. I am not afraid of you; but I do not choose to be disturbed by your presence.”
“Confound your cheek,” said Cashel, indignantly; “is that the way you receive a man who comes to make a friendly call on you?”
“Friendly NOW, doubtless, when you see that I am well protected.”
Cashel gave a long whistle. “Oh,” he said, “you thought I came to pitch into you. Ha! ha! And you call that science—to draw a pistol on a man. But you daren’t fire it, and well you know it. You’d better put it up, or you may let it off without intending to: I never feel comfortable when I see a fool meddling with firearms. I came to tell you that I’m going to be married to your cousin. Ain’t you glad?”
Lucian’s face changed. He believed; but he said, obstinately, “I don’t credit that statement. It is a lie.”