“Have I ever been wanting in a proper deference?” said he, bowing, with a mock humility.
“If you had been, sir, it is not now that you had first heard of it,” said she, with a proud look, and for a few seconds it seemed as though their jesting was to have a serious ending. She was, however, the earliest to make terms, and in a tone of hearty kindliness said: “Don't be angry, Freddy, and I 'll tell you a secret. If that theme be touched on, I lose my head: whether it be in the blood that circles in my veins, or in some early teachings that imbued my childhood, or long dreaming over what can never be, I cannot tell, but it is enough to speak of these things, and at once my imagination becomes exalted and my reason is routed.”
“I have no doubt your Ayah was to blame for this; she must have filled your head with ambitions, and hopes of a grand hereafter. Even I myself have some experiences of this sort; for as my father held a high post and was surrounded with great state and pomp, I grew at a very early age to believe myself a very mighty personage, and gave my orders with despotic insolence, and suffered none to gainsay me.”
“How silly!” said she, with a supercilious toss of her head that made Conyers flush up; and once again was peace endangered between them.
“You mean that what was only a fair and reasonable assumption in you was an absurd pretension in me, Miss Barrington; is it not so?” asked he, in a voice tremulous with passion.
“I mean that we must both have been very naughty children, and the less we remember of that childhood the better for us. Are we friends, Freddy?” and she held out her hand.
“Yes, if you wish it,” said he, taking her hand half coldly in his own.
“Not that way, sir. It is I who have condescended; not you.”
“As you please, Fifine,—will this do?” and kneeling with well-assumed reverence, he lifted her hand to his lips.
“If my opinion were to be asked, Mr. Conyers, I would say it would not do at all,” said Miss Dinah, coming suddenly up, her cheeks crimson, and her eyes flashing.