“You know that I admired her! How should you know that? Have I shown it in any word or look?”
“No, no; don’t be angry, my dear fellow,” responded Bertie, quickly. “No, no; but I felt somehow that you did.”
“Oh!”
“And I’m certain she admires you. I’m sure, if you’d seen her face as she sat to-night while you were reciting, and at dinner time, too, with her eyes fixed upon you——”
Faradeane’s pipe seemed to trouble him again.
“Oh, I could see that she was immensely taken with you; and who wouldn’t be? Don’t smile like that, old man; I mean all I say; and it was because I am so sure that—that—she likes you and looks up to you, that I came in here to you to-night. The idea only struck me as I was passing the top of the lane.”
“Oh,” said Faradeane, quietly; “and what was the idea, Cherub?”
Bertie fidgeted in his chair, and sighed.
“Look here, Cly——”
Faradeane raised his head with a warning glance, and Bertie, coloring crimson, stumbled on: