"I'll ask Mrs. Redmond. But I know we can. She never refuses me anything," says this most unorthodox governess.
"I'm sure I'm not surprised at that," says Branscombe. "Who could?"
"Aunt Elizabeth could," says Miss Broughton.
"I haven't the misfortune to know your aunt Elizabeth, for which I am devoutly grateful, because if she 'could,' as you say, she must be too good for hanging. By the by, this is not my first ball; yet you have never taken the trouble to ask me (though I asked you) why I intend keeping this night as a white spot in my memory."
"Well, I ask you now," says Georgie, penitently.
"Do you care to know?"
"I do, indeed."
"Then it is because to-night I met you for the first time."
He bends his head a little, and looks into her eyes,—the beautiful eyes that smile back so calmly into his, and are so cold to him, and yet so full of fire,—eyes that somehow have power to charm him as no others have yet been able to.
He is strangely anxious to know how his words will be received, and is proportionately aggrieved in that she takes them as a matter of course.