"I have always liked you, Mr. Haggard," she said, for Georgie could not yet bring her self to address her lover by his Christian name; "but I fear I must seem a very poor creature after all the dashing South-American beauties, to say nothing of the many recognized successes of the past season."
"But you were the success of the past season, Georgie. Everybody knows it. Why, they raved about you. You must know very well that Madame Hortense made a little fortune with the 'Warrender' hat."
"Ah, that was Lucy's idea, not mine, Mr. Haggard."
"A very charming idea, Georgie, but never so charming as when you wore it."
Georgie Warrender rose and made him a low courtesy. "I see you deal in sugared compliments," she said.
He got up and offered his arm.
The hideous and snobbish custom of taking a lady's arm had not then been invented. And to do him justice, even if it had, Haggard was too much of a gentleman to have attempted it. For customs borrowed from the habits of the demi monde would have been sadly out of place with a girl like Georgie Warrender. With her cousin it might have been different; but with Georgie the thing would have been impossible.
As the extent of his own good luck began to dawn upon Haggard, he felt that the world had indeed gone very well with him; for as he had marched down the walk of the old-fashioned rose garden that morning, for the first time in his life he had felt diffident of success; for the first time in his life he now vowed in his fickle mind to be true to the smiling girl who, in the bright glamour of a first love, hung so confidingly on his arm. Of course he vowed eternal constancy. At lovers' perjuries they say Jove laughs, and well might the whole Olympian chorus have joined in the loud guffaw with which the king of all the gods doubtlessly greeted the protestations of Fortune's favourite. As each drank deep draughts of the subtle poison from the other's eyes, their glances grew brighter, and they were only awakened from the dream that comes to us all, at least once in our lifetimes, by the imperious clash of the luncheon-bell. Old Mr. Warrender and Lucy appeared upon the lawn, and the broad smile on her father's face and Lucy's merry laugh told the happy pair that they might spare any explanation. Georgie, in the pride of her honest love, disdained to take her hand from the young man's arm. With womanly dignity she advanced to meet her delighted father. He kissed her on the forehead, and then the blushing girl took refuge in her cousin's affectionate embrace.
"Be good to her, my boy," said Squire Warrender, his honest voice a little broken as he thought of the old days of his own too short-lived happiness, and of the proud dead beauty, Georgie's mother. It was a short speech, but it rang in Reginald Haggard's ears for many a year.
Will he be good to her? He should be. If not good to her, surely Reginald Haggard will be less than a dog.