"I should think not, indeed. I only wish I had a grandfather, and wouldn't I utilize him! But I am an unfortunate,—alone in the world."
Even as she speaks, the door in the next drawing-room opens, and through the folding-doors, which stand apart, she sees her husband enter, and make his way to a davenport.
"That destroys your argument," says Molly, with a low laugh, as she runs away to her own room to write her letters.
For a few minutes Cecil sits silently enjoying a distant view of her husband's back. But she is far too much of a coquette to let him long remain in ignorance of her near proximity. Going softly up to him, and leaning lightly over his shoulder, she says, in a half-whisper, "What are you doing?"
He starts a little, not having expected to see so fair an apparition, and lays one of his hands over hers as it rests upon his shoulder.
"Is it you?" he says. "I did not hear you coming."
"No? That was because I was farthest from your thoughts. You are writing? To whom?"
"My tailor, for one. It is a sad but certain fact that, sooner or later, one's tailor must be paid."
"So must one's modiste." With a sigh. "It is that sort of person who spoils one's life."
"Is your life spoiled?"