"Give him five minutes and a razor, and he might do away with himself too," says Olga, provokingly. "Really. I [think] one thing would please me just as much as the other."
"Oh, then, you are bent on refusing him?" says Hermia, calmly. With very few people does she ever lose her temper; with Olga—never.
"I am not so sure of that, at all," says Olga, airily. "It is quite within the possibilities that I may marry him some time or other,—sooner or later. There is a delightful vagueness about those two dates that gives me the warmest encouragement."
"It is a pity you cannot be serious sometimes," says Mrs. Herrick, mildly.
A little hand upon her gown saves further expostulation. A little face looking up with a certainty of welcome into hers brings again that wonderful softness into Hermia's eyes.
"Is it you, my sweetest?" she says, fondly. "And where have you been? I have watched in vain for you for the last half-hour, my Fay."
"I was in the dining-room. But nurse called me; and now I have come to say good-night," says the child.
"Good-night, then, and God bless you, my chick. But where is my Georgie?"
"I'm here," says Georgie, gleefully, springing upon her in a violent fashion, that one would have believed hateful to the calm Hermia, yet that is evidently most grateful to her. She embraces the boy warmly, and lets her eyes follow him until he is out of sight. Then she turns again to the little maiden at her side.
"I must go with Georgie," says the child.