“Then do you quite mean to deny me all hope?”
“Hope must be according to your own impressions, my dear Fordham. Of course, if you are well, and still wishing it four or five years hence, it would be free to you to try again. More, I cannot say. No, don’t thank me, for I trust to your honour to make no demonstrations in the meantime, and not to consider yourself as bound.”
It was a relief that Armine here came in, attracted by a report of his friend’s arrival, and Mrs. Brownlow went in search of her daughter, to whom she was guided by a sonata played with very unnecessary violence.
“You need not murder Haydn any more, you little barbarian,” she said, with a hand on the child’s shoulder, and looking anxiously into the gloomy face. “I have settled him.”
Babie drew a long breath, and said—
“I’m glad! It was so horrid! You’ll not let him do it any more?”
“Then you decidedly would not like it?” returned her mother.
“Like it? Poor Duke! Mother! As if I could ever! A man that can’t sit in a draught, or get wet in his feet!” cried Babie, with the utmost scorn; and reading reproof as well as amused pity in her mother’s eyes, she added, “Of course, I am very sorry for him; but fancy being very sorry for one’s love!”
“I thought you liked wounded knights?”
“Wounded! Yes, but they’ve done something, and had glorious wounds. Now Duke—he is very good, and it is not his fault but his misfortune; but he is such a—such a muff!”