'Oh, I'm so glad!'
'He taxed me with not taking food enough; and when I allowed that I had no turn for eating, insisted on this sea plan: but he laughed me to scorn when I asked whether I might not get a room at Dearport, and run backwards and forwards. "Ay," he said, "you have a good deal on your mind;" and I fell into the trap, and told him my partner had been ill, and we had a great deal to work up. And he went on to ask if I had not the charge of the family, and was not apt to get anxious about them; and he turned round on me, and ordered me to get a thorough holiday, and turn my back on everybody and everything; for there's nothing the matter with me but overwork and harass—' Something that did not amount to and finished the sentence.
'O Felix, I know, I have felt,' she said, the tears standing in her eyes, and the colour rushing into her face at this first venture.
'Have you—little foolish thing?' he answered, but shifting hand and elbow so that nothing of his face could be seen but a bit of brow and temple, and that was crimson to the roots of his hair. 'Don't take it for more than it ever was,' he muttered.
'It was enough to hurt you grievously,' whispered the sister.
'It ought not,' he said. 'It was only the putting out of a vain foolish hope I had no right to indulge. Eh, Cherry!' as she made a little sound, 'tell me one thing; was it all imagination and folly that she—she could have—liked me?' He bent his head with almost as much suppressed emotion as if it had been a matter of present hope.
'Certainly not,' said Cherry. 'She liked your—your attentions; and I thought sometimes you were quite pulling her up to your level. If no one else—'
'I did not imagine it was visible,' he interrupted. 'I tried to be very guarded, but one does not know—'
'You were. Somehow one feels more than one sees.'
'And you thought she did? Then at least I was not quite a fool! I fancied that there was response enough to what seems to have shown in spite of me to warrant the dream that if ever a time came—!'