"My darling,—my sweet,—do you really love me?" asks Guy, after a few moments given up to such ecstasy as may be known once in a lifetime,—not oftener.
"What a question!" says Lilian, smiling through eyes that are still wet. "I have not once asked it of you. I look into your eyes and I see love written there in great big letters, and I am satisfied. Can you not see the same in mine? Look closely,—very closely, and try if you cannot."
"Dear eyes!" says Guy, kissing them separately. "Lilian, if indeed you love me, why have you made life so odious to me for the last three months?"
"Because I wasn't going to be civil to people who were over-attentive to other people," says Lilian, in her most lucid manner. "And—sometimes—I thought you liked Florence."
"Florence? Pshaw! Who could like Florence, having once seen you?"
"Mr. Boer could, I'm sure. He has seen me,—as seldom as I could manage, certainly,—but still enough to mark the wide difference between us."
"Boer is a lunatic," says Guy, with conviction,—"quite unaccountable. But I think I could forgive him all his peccadilloes if he would promise to marry Florence and remove her. I can stand almost anything—except single chants as performed by her."
"Then all my jealousy was for nothing?" with a slight smile.
"All. But what of mine? What of Chesney?" He regards her earnestly as he asks the question.
"Poor Archie," she says, with a pang of real sorrow and regret, as she remembers everything. And then follows a conversation confined exclusively to Archibald,—being filled with all the heart-burnings and despair caused by that unhappy young man's mistaken attentions. When the subject has exhausted itself, and they are once more silent, they find themselves thoughtful, perhaps a little sad. A sigh escapes Lilian. Raising her head, she looks at her lover anxiously.