"Pray spare me your presence, you should rather say. Let us have the truth at all hazards. A saint like you should be careful."
To this she makes him no answer.
"What!" cries he, sardonically; "and will you miss this splendid opportunity of giving a sop to your Cerberus? Of conciliating your bugbear? your bête noire? your fear of gossip?"
"I fear nothing"—icily.
"You do, however. Forgive the contradiction," with a sarcastic inclination of the head. "But for this fear of yours you would have cast me off long ago, and bade me go to the devil as soon as—nay, the sooner the better. And indeed if it were not for the child——By the bye, do you forget I have a hold on him—a stronger than yours?"
"I forget nothing either," returns she as icily as before; but now a tremor, barely perceptible, but terrible in its intensity, shakes her voice.
"Hah! You need not tell me that. You are relentless as—well, 'Fate' comes in handy," with a reckless laugh. "Let us be conventional by all means, and it is a good old simile, well worn! You decline my proposal then? It is a sensible one, and should suit you. Dance with me to-night, when all the County is present, and Mother Grundy goes to bed with a sore heart. Scandal lies slain. All will cry aloud: 'There they go! Fast friends in spite of all the lies we have heard about them.' Is it possible you can deliberately forego so great a chance of puzzling our neighbors?"
"I can."
"Why, where is your sense of humor? One trembles for it! To be able to deceive them all so deliriously; to send them home believing us on good terms, a veritable loving couple"—he breaks into a curious laugh.
"This is too much," says she, her face now like death. "You would insult me! Believe me, that not to spare myself all the gossip with which the whole world could hurt me would I endure your arm around my waist!"