“You—want—me to tell her?” he said, slowly.
“Yes,” said Bertie, in his eagerness leaning forward with clasped hands. “That’s what I want. Try as I will, I can’t find the pluck. You’ll think I’m a coward, I know. I can’t help it. If you only felt as I do! I tell you, old fellow, that when I think of going to her, and saying—what I should have to say—I—I—my voice leaves me. You don’t know what she is. She might laugh at me, or she might turn on me with one of those cold, far-away looks in her eyes; and—and both ways of taking it would—would settle me.”
He paused for want of breath.
“Now, you—you could tell her how I feel; you could say just the right thing, and—and convince her that I love her so dearly that I’d rather die than live without her.”
Faradeane laughed again; the same sad, half-bitter laugh.
“Don’t laugh at me, for Heaven’s sake,” implored Bertie. “It’s fun to you, but it’s death to me, Faradeane. And don’t refuse me. I know what I’m about. I know what she thinks of you—yes, already, though she has only known you for a few days. A man who loves a girl as I do Olivia—well, he gets sharp, and notices every little thing about her, every look and word, and I know that she would listen to you, that you could persuade——”
“Stop! Are you mad?” exclaimed Faradeane, sternly.
Bertie looked up, and saw that the handsome face had grown white, almost pallid.
“What have I said?” he exclaimed, penitently. “Have I offended you? I didn’t mean to do so. What I said is true. You have an influence over her——”
Faradeane rose abruptly and leaned his elbow upon the mantelshelf, and his head upon his hand, and there was silence for a moment; then he raised his head. “You are talking arrant nonsense,” he said, not sternly, but coldly. “Miss Vanley thinks no more, cares no more, is no more influenced by me than—than she is by her footman. Put such an absurd idea out of your foolish head. She does not give a thought to me, whom she has not seen for more than a few minutes, on as many days. Talk sense, Cherub, or—or go home to bed.”