“Sit down,” he said, pointing to the chair. “Your madness is affecting me. It is catching. Sit down.” Bertie dropped meekly into the chair, and Faradeane paced up and down the room for a moment or two; then he stopped suddenly and looked down at the handsome, the girlish face, with its trusting patience. “You—you still persist in this insane idea of yours?” he asked, almost harshly.
Bertie nodded.
“Yes, I do. Faradeane, if you knew how much I rely on you——”
Faradeane uttered an impatient exclamation.
“But I do. See here; I have a kind of faith that if you—if you would tell her to—to accept me, that she’d do it. Laugh at the idea as much as you like, but you can’t destroy it. It’s there, and I can’t get rid of it. Cly—I mean Faradeane, for Heaven’s sake say ‘Yes!’”
Faradeane looked down at him with steady, yet dreamy gaze; then he seemed to straighten himself, to brace himself, as it were, and said, slowly:
“Well, I will do it.”
Bertie sprang to his feet, his face flushed with relief and gratification; but Faradeane held up his hand.
“Stop! No gratitude! No thanks! If you knew how I hated”—he stopped and bit his lip—“how I disliked it, you would not say a word.”
Bertie seized his hand.