“Not one, sir! The lesson my frankness has taught me is, never to incur this peril again.”
“Do you part from me in anger?”
“Not with you; but I will not answer for myself if you press me further.”
“Even this much is better than despair,” said he, mournfully; and she passed into the cottage, while he stood in the porch and bowed respectfully as she went by. “Better than I looked for, better than I could have hoped,” muttered he to himself, as he strolled away and disappeared in the wood.
CHAPTER V. A CABINET COUNCIL
“What do you think of it, Dinah?” said Barrington, as they sat in conclave the next morning in her own sitting-room.
She laid down a letter she had just finished reading on the table, carefully folding it, like one trying to gain time before she spoke: “He's a clever man, and writes well, Peter; there can be no second opinion upon that.”
“But his proposal, Dinah,—his proposal?”
“Pleases me less the more I think of it. There is great disparity of age,—a wide discrepancy in character. A certain gravity of demeanor would not be undesirable, perhaps, in a husband for Josephine, who has her moments of capricious fancy; but if I mistake not, this man's nature is stern and unbending.”