“Have you seen any flower-girls, Mr Crichton?” said Emily, wickedly.
“No, Miss Tollemache, nothing so interesting;” and then a sudden sense of the extreme falsity of his words came over him; and he blushed in a violent, foolish way, which completed his annoyance with things in general.
James saw the blush and knew that something had happened. He did not, how ever, quite like to question his brother; and when the ladies left them they went out on the balcony and for some time smoked in silence.
At last Hugh knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and said, in a formal, uncomfortable tone:
“James, I have made a proposal to Mdlle. Mattei.”
“The deuce you have!” ejaculated Jem.
“And what did she say?”
“She accepted it. But, Jem, you may entirely disabuse your mind of the idea that there has been any attempt to—to catch me; for her father has just given me to understand that he will not consent to it.”
“What! he prefers the manager!”
“So he says.”