"Pray inform me, Marion, why I am to be left in solitude here, when everybody knows that in a place like this I cannot possibly receive visitors alone. One would suppose that you wished to prevent me from seeing Captain De Crespigny this morning."
"By no means, Agnes. But is there any occasion for me to remain, when Patrick of course accompanies him here as usual?"
"Nonsense, Marion. You know perfectly well that Patrick may or may not be here, for that all depends on whims like your own, and nothing renders it correct to receive gentlemen in the morning, except there being two of us at home. I expected more friendship and consideration from you; but people never will think of any one but themselves!"
"You are like a Hebrew scholar, and always read me backwards, Agnes. I have only to know your wishes in order to comply with them," replied Marion, good-humoredly re-seating herself, and adding, with a beautiful timidity of manner and voice, "I cannot but think that, until you are actually engaged, it would perhaps be better if—if—Captain De Crespigny's attentions were not to—to be at all divided."
"Divided!" exclaimed Agnes, looking perfectly sublime in her anger. "What can you mean?"
"Excuse me, Agnes," replied Marion, trying to steady her voice, and to hide her confusion. "I mean that Captain De Crespigny has the reputation of being a confirmed flirt; that I hope and trust, if it be really for your happiness, he is, as you think, irretrievably attached and engaged to yourself; but if a housemaid enter the room, he cannot resist attempting to look handsome, and to attract her admiration; therefore you cannot but suppose he will endeavor to waste some of his fascinations occasionally upon me, and till he is my brother, I would rather avoid any such absurdity."
"Your meaning is plain enough now, and requires no interpreter!" said Agnes, with an angry toss of her head. "Every one must see and know, that Captain De Crespigny is exclusively and entirely devoted to me."
"That is a point, Agnes, of which no third person can be an adequate judge," replied Marion, evasively; "but I am as anxious to believe it as yourself."
"If you entertain any fear of causing me a disappointment, make your own mind perfectly easy, as mine is. If Captain De Crespigny could hesitate a moment between us, I should scarcely think him worth living for, and still less worth dying for. Be assured I shall never endure a moment's uneasiness on your account. Here he comes, regular as the rising sun, and quite as welcome."
After all the lively badinage of Captain De Crespigny's first reception was over, Marion quietly retreated into the deep embrasure of a window, where her work-table stood, and busied herself with answering some notes, while almost entirely shaded from observation; yet still Captain De Crespigny's eye incessantly wandered to the place where she sat, for there was something unintentionally piquante in the total indifference with which she thus secluded herself from his attentions and civilities. Observing, at length, that Marion had begun carefully pruning the dead leaves from a bouquet of rather drooping flowers, which seemed still vainly affecting to look fresh and gay, he broke off in the middle of a sentence from Agnes, and clandestinely approaching the table when Marion was looking in another direction, he stole them all away, and substituted one so fresh and fragrant that Marion uttered an exclamation of rapturous admiration. She neither blushed nor looked down, however; but as if it were no more than an every day civility, held it up to Agnes for admiration, and endeavored to attract her towards the table by the perfume of her beautiful flowers.