“So you 'll not consent, Jim?” said Frobisher, in a half-coaxing manner to the young girl, who, with averted head, sat in mingled sorrow and displeasure. “Well, don't be pettish about it; I 'm sure I thought it very generous in me, considering—”
She looked round at this moment, and her large eyes were bent upon him with a look which their very tears made passionately meaning.
“Considering what a neat finger you have on a young horse,” said he. And she turned abruptly away, and, as if to hide her emotion, spurred her mare into a bounding canter.
“Take care, Charley, take care what you 're doing,” said Linton, with a look of consummate shrewdness.
Frobisher looked after her for a minute or two, and then seemed to drop into a revery, for he made no reply whatever.
“Let the matter stop where it is,” said Linton, quietly, as if replying to some acknowledgment of the other; “let it stop there, I say, and one of these days, when she marries,—as she unquestionably will do, through papa Downie's means,—somebody of influence, she 'll be a steadfast, warm friend, never forgetting, nor ever wishing to forget, her childhood's companion. Go a little further, however, and you 'll just have an equally determined enemy. I know a little of both sides of the question,” added he, meditatively, “and it needs slight reflection which to prefer.”
“How are you going to amuse us here, Mr. Linton?” said she, cantering up at this moment; “for it seems to me, as old Lord Kilgoff says, that we are like to have a very dull house. People are ordering dinner for their own small parties as unsocially as though they were at the Crown Inn, at Brighton.”
“Yes, by the by,” said Frobisher, “I want to ask you about that. Don't you think it were better to dash a little bit of 'communism' through your administration?”
“I intend to send in my resignation as premier, now that the head of the State has arrived,” said Linton, smiling dubiously.
“I perceive,” said Frobisher, shrewdly, “you expect that the Government will go to pieces, if you leave it.”