ADIEU.
“Are you not a long time getting to the Hall?” inquired Lady Gwendolyn innocently. “It looked so very near when I was at the top of the tree. I am afraid I must be dreadfully heavy, after all. Do let me try to walk.”
“Not for the world; you might injure yourself for life,” he replied. “I could have hurried a little more, only that I was afraid of shaking you.”
Of course he could. Lady Gwendolyn knew that as well as he did, and smiled to herself. Surely he deserved that she should play with him a little, when for two long years he had kept her in suspense as to the state of his feelings, and had only betrayed them by accident now.
“You carry me beautifully,” she said, with her most gracious air. “You must be wonderfully strong.”
“I used to be; but I have seen my best days, you know.”
“I don’t know. What age are you?” she asked, in her usual downright way.
“Nearly thirty-four.”
“Say thirty-three; there is no need to anticipate. I shall be twenty next week; but I mean to call myself nineteen until twelve o’clock on Monday night. When I reach twenty-five I shall pause there for four or five years, and then go on as slowly as possible, counting every other year, until I am awfully old, and then I sha’n’t mind.”
“Would you really mind now if you were—thirty, say?”