"Oh, never mind it," says Sir Mark.
Dulce and Roger having skated by this time past all the others, and safely over a rather shaky part of the ice that leaves them at the very farthest corner of the lake, stop somewhat out of breath and look at each other triumphantly.
Dulce is looking, if possible, more bonny than usual. Her blood is aglow, and tingling with the excitement of her late exertion; her hair, without actually having come undone, is certainly under less control than it was an hour ago, and is glinting and changing from auburn to brown, and from brown to a warm yellow, beneath the sad kisses of the Wintry sun. One or two riotous locks have escaped from under her otter-skin cap and are straying lovingly across her fair forehead, suggesting an idea of coquetry in the sweet eyes below shaded by their long dark lashes.
"Your eyes are stars of morning,
Your lips are crimson flowers,"
says Roger softly, as they still stand hand in hand. He is looking at her intently, with a new meaning in his glance as he says this.
"What a pretty song that is!" says Miss Blount, carelessly. "I like it better almost every time I hear it."
"It was you made me think of it now," says Roger; and then they seat themselves upon a huge stone near the brink, that looks as if it was put there on purpose for them.
"Where is Gower?" asks Roger, at length, somewhat abruptly.
"Yes—where?" returns she, in a tone suggestive of the idea that now for the first time she had missed him. She says it quite naturally and without changing color. The fact is it really is the first time she has thought of him to-day, but I regret to say Roger firmly believes she is acting, and that she is doing it uncommonly well.
"He hasn't been at the Court since yesterday—has he?" he asks, somewhat impatiently.