"Ah! so I have found you, Mrs. Bohun."
"You have indeed, and in good time. I am pining in prison, but you have come to deliver me."
"If I may."
"Such a dreary little spot, is it not? I don't know what could have induced me to enter it."
"Ronayne possibly," says Rossmoyne, with an unpleasant smile.
"Oh, dear, no!" contemptuously: "I came here of my own free will. We all do foolish things at times, I have not danced this last because Mr. Ronayne prefers pleasant converse. I don't. I thought you would never come to seek me. What were you doing?"
"Hunting for you, and thinking every minute an hour. These curtains"—touching them—"were jealous of you, and sought to hide you."
"Well, don't be so long next time," she says, looking up at him with a smile that a little more pressure would make tender and laying her hand on his arm.
She moves away. Ronayne, drawing his breath somewhat savagely, sits down on the sill of the window and gazes blankly into the barrack-yard below. He has still her programme in his hand, and is crumpling it unconscionably, hardly knowing what he does. But, if disturbed in mind, it is always such a comfort to smash something, be it a piece of pasteboard or one's most intimate friend.
She had forgotten her card, probably, and now it is almost useless. Ronayne's heart is full of bitterness, and he tries to swear to himself that for the future he will cleanse his heart of this coquette, who cares no more for him—nay, far less—than she does for her little toy terrier. Yet, even as these stern resolves seek vainly to root themselves in his breast, his eyes turn [again] to the room beyond, and make search for the siren who is his undoing. She is still, of course, with Rossmoyne, and is all smiles and pretty blushes, and is evidently both content and happy.