"But there is always Aunt Priscilla," says Monica, nervously. Her tone is full of affliction. "Oh, if she could only see me now!"
"Well, she can't, that's one comfort; not if she were the hundred-eyed Argus himself."
"I feel I am behaving very badly to her," says Monica, dolorously. "I am, in spite of myself, deceiving her, and to-morrow, when it is all over,——"
"It shan't be over," interrupts he, with considerable vigor. "What a thing to say!"
"I shall feel so guilty when I get back to Moyne. Just as if I had been doing something dreadful. So I have, I think. How shall I ever be able to look her in the face again?"
"Don't you know? It is the simplest thing in the world. You have only to fix your eyes steadily on the tip of her nose, and there you are!"
This disgraceful frivolity on the part of her lover rouses quick reproach in Monica's eyes.
"I don't think it is a nice thing to laugh at one," she says, very justly incensed. "I wouldn't laugh at you if you were unhappy. You are not the least help to me. What am I to say to Aunt Priscilla?"
"'How d'ye do?' first; and then—in an airy tone, you know—'I am going to be married, as soon as time permits, to Brian Desmond.' No, no," penitently, catching a firmer hold of her as she makes a valiant but ineffectual effort to escape the shelter of his arms, "I didn't mean it. I am sorry, and I'll never do it again. I'll sympathize with anything you say, if you will promise not to desert me."
"It is you," reproachfully, "who desert me, and in my hour of need. I don't think," wistfully, "I am so very much to blame, am I? I didn't ask you to fall in love with me, and when you came here all this week to see Madam O'Connor I couldn't possibly have turned my back upon you, could I?"