“Oh, Miss Georgina, you cannot attach such interest to my presence here, as to speak of my departure in terms like these!”
“I don’t know how others think of these things,” said she, with a sort of pouting air, “but, for my own part, I cling very closely to old friendships.”
Had Mr. M’Kinlay been some twenty years younger, he would, doubtless, have seized on the moment to make a declaration. The conjuncture promised well, and he would not have lost it; but Mr. M’Kinlay had arrived at the time of life in which men are more prone to speculate on the consequences of failure than on the results of success, and when they never address them to jump over the narrowest ditch without a thought of the terrible splashing they shall get if they fall in, and, worse even than the wetting, the unsympathising comments of a malicious public.
“What is Mr. M’Kinlay pondering over so deeply?” said Georgina, as she turned her eyes full upon him; and very effective eyes they were at such a range.
“I can scarcely tell; that is, I don’t well know now to tell,” said he, trying to screw up his courage.
“Mr. M’Kinlay has a secret, I’m certain,” said she, with a winning coquetry she was quite mistress of.
That look she gave—it-was a long-dwelling look as though she had half forgotten, to take away her eyes, for ladies will sometimes fire after the enemy has struck—was too much for Mr. M’Kinlay; he forgot all his prudential reserves, and said, “Has not every one his secret, Miss Courtenay?”
“I suppose so,” said she, carelessly.