Alvar twisted the patterns over his fingers as he stood in the window and did not at once answer.
“How is Cherry?” she said. “Is he better to-day?”
“Perhaps—a little,” said Alvar. “But the doctors have seen him again, and they say that he must not stay here—that he must go abroad for all the winter.”
“Do they?” said Virginia; “that looks very serious.”
“Ah yes,” said Alvar a little impatiently, “but my father—they all talk as if it would kill him to go; he will get well away from these bitter winds—and—and the businesses that are too much for him.”
“Yes,” said Virginia slowly, perceiving that Alvar did not quite understand how startling a sound being ordered abroad had to English ears after such an illness as Cheriton’s. “What does he say himself about it?”
“He dreads it very much; but we will go to Seville, and then he must find it pleasant.”
Virginia started; she changed colour, and her heart began to beat very fast.
“Mi querida!” said Alvar, taking her hand. “I feel that I—affront you—I do not know how to ask you to let me go; but how can I send my brother away without me? For his sake I expose myself perhaps to blame from your father—”
“I don’t quite understand,” said Virginia, withdrawing a little, and speaking with unusual clearness. “Did Cherry ask you to go with him?”