“My dear Richard,” I returned, “you know you would be heartily welcome at his house—your home, if you will but consider it so; and you are as heartily welcome here!”
“Spoken like the best of little women!” cried Richard gaily.
I asked him how he liked his profession.
“Oh, I like it well enough!” said Richard. “It’s all right. It does as well as anything else, for a time. I don’t know that I shall care about it when I come to be settled, but I can sell out then and—however, never mind all that botheration at present.”
So young and handsome, and in all respects so perfectly the opposite of Miss Flite! And yet, in the clouded, eager, seeking look that passed over him, so dreadfully like her!
“I am in town on leave just now,” said Richard.
“Indeed?”
“Yes. I have run over to look after my—my Chancery interests before the long vacation,” said Richard, forcing a careless laugh. “We are beginning to spin along with that old suit at last, I promise you.”
No wonder that I shook my head!
“As you say, it’s not a pleasant subject.” Richard spoke with the same shade crossing his face as before. “Let it go to the four winds for to-night. Puff! Gone! Who do you suppose is with me?”