I scrambled up—gave the animal a blow that sent her to the other side of the room—and hatless, and bloody, made for the door. With frantic haste I seized the handle—it did not yield; the door was fastened by a spring lock, and I was a prisoner!
Imagine my dismay! Florence stood looking at me, and there was a smile on her face that she, with great difficulty restrained from breaking into a decided ha! ha! Just then I would have sold myself to any reliable man for a six-pence, and thirty days credit.
Mortified and crestfallen, I was strongly inclined to follow the example of the heroines in sensation novels, and burst into tears; but crying, it is said, makes the nose red, and, remembering this, I forbore.
I suppose Florence pitied me; she must have seen from the woe begone expression of my face that I was in the last stages of human endurance, for she came quietly to my side and laid her hand on my arm.
"Come in, Roy," she said, kindly—almost tenderly, I thought—and drew me into a small boudoir opposite the sitting-room. Things in the latter apartment were too nearly wrecked to make it pleasant for occupation, I suppose.
"There," she said, seating me on a sofa by her side, and speaking in a consoling tone one would use to a child who had burnt his apron, or broke the sugar-bowl, "don't think anything more of it." She was wiping the blood from pussy's autograph on my face with her handkerchief—"Accidents will happen, you know!"
She was so close to me—her sweet face so very near mine—and the temptation was so great that I trust I may be excused, especially as I am a bashful man, and not in the habit of committing such indiscretions.
I threw my arms around her and paid back, with interest, the kiss I had kept so long. A burning blush overspread her face.
"Oh, Roy! how could you?" she exclaimed, reproachfully.
I had gone too far to retreat; the words which for years had filled my heart struggled up to my lips and clamored for utterance.