“Kind to me! Of course they are!” She opened her eyes with astonishment. “And I’m happy, or I should be if you wouldn’t go and leave me so much. Why do you go?”
“Business,” he said. “Business must be attended to, my dear Esmeralda. You see, if I stayed here long I should win all the boys’ money, and so I have to shift the scene occasionally.”
She did not look horrified. She was so accustomed to Varley Howard’s profession, that it seemed as proper and legitimate in her eyes as that of a lawyer or a doctor.
“And how are you getting on with your studies?” he asked.
She laughed, and stuck a flower in his button-hole, and leaned back, with her head on one side, to view the effect.
“How handsome you are, Varley!”
“Thanks. But about the studies, Esmeralda?”
She laughed again.
“Oh, they’re a bore, and The Penman is a dear old nuisance.”
“So I may take it that you are not getting on at all?” said Varley.