She nodded, and he went on,—
“Probably, too, knowing the reasons for that refusal?”
“No, sir; the matter was indifferent to me, so I never troubled my head about it. My Lord said we shouldn't go, and I said, 'Very well,' and there it ended.”
Now, although this was spoken with a most admirably feigned indifference, Linton was too shrewd an observer not to penetrate the deception.
“I am doubly unlucky this day,” said he, at last, “first to employ all my artifices to plan a ministerial success to which you are actually averse, and secondly, to carry a point to which you are indifferent.”
“Dare I ask, if the question be not an indiscreet one, what peculiar interest Mr. Linton can have, either in our acceptance or refusal of this invitation?”
“Have I not said that I believed you desired it?” replied he, with a most meaning look.
“Indeed you read inclinations most skilfully, only that you interpret them by anticipation.”
“This is too much,” said Linton, in a voice whose passionate earnestness showed that all dissimulation was at an end, “far too much! The genteel comedy that we play before the world, madam, might be laid aside for a few moments here. When I asked for this interview, and you consented to give it—”
“It was on the express stipulation that you should treat me as you do in society, sir,” broke she in—“that there should be no attempt to fall back upon an intimacy which can never be resumed.”