If she had only told Jeffrey on the first of her acquaintance with Lord Neville! She would have taken the note to him, if she had done so; but she felt that to place it in his hands now would be to call forth one of his fierce outbursts of rage, in which it was quite possible he might seek Lord Neville and force a quarrel on him.
What should she do? The question haunted her all the way home. Should she write and tell Lord Neville that she could not meet him, and request him not to write to her again? This seemed the easiest thing to do, but she shrank from it for two reasons: One, because Jeffrey had often warned her against writing to strangers, and the other, because it seemed so stern a rebuke for so slight an offense.
For, after all, his sin was not so great. He had asked permission to call upon her, asked it respectfully and with all the deference of a gentleman addressing a lady his equal in position, and she had refused to grant him the permission. If he wanted to see her, what else could he do than write and ask her to meet him?
Once she nearly summoned up courage to tell Jeffrey everything, but, as she looked up at him as he leaned back in the corner of the fly, with bent head and folded arms, she saw so stern and moody an expression on his face that her courage failed her; he was just in the humor to consider the note an insult, and seek to avenge it.
And somehow Doris could not regard it in this way. As she read the words, she seemed to hear Lord Neville’s deep, musical voice pronouncing them, pleadingly, respectfully, with reverence rather than insult.
Doris was a great actress, but she was as ignorant of the world outside the theatre as a child; she had only her instinct to guide her, and that seemed to say that it was impossible Lord Neville could have meant to insult her!
But the result of all her thinking was this: That her acquaintance with him must cease. She must have no friends save those of the theatre; least of all, a young nobleman who tossed her bouquets of violets, and begged her to meet him in the meadows!
Jeffrey’s mood clung to him during the remainder of the night. As a rule, after their supper, which was an exceedingly simple one, he grew cheerful and talkative; but to-night he sat with bent head and frowning brows, apparently brooding over the past.
Once or twice she saw him look up at her with a half-troubled glance; then, as his eyes met hers, he compressed his lips and sighed; and after a while he said suddenly:
“You are happy, Doris?”