Miss Barry has noticed Susan’s hanging back, and, wondering that she should refuse her photograph to so good a friend, comes quickly forward.
‘Susan, I really think you might give Mr. Crosby your picture. You know, Mr. Crosby, I have always kept the girls a little strict, and perhaps Susan thinks—’
‘I don’t,’ says Susan, with sudden vehemence. She has shrunk back a little; her lovely eyes have suddenly grown shamed. ‘It—isn’t that, auntie.’
‘Oh, my dear, if it isn’t that—’ says Miss Barry; and being now called by Dominick, she turns away.
‘Auntie takes such queer views of things,’ says Susan, pale and unhappy. ‘It seems, however, that she would like me to give you my photograph. Well’—grudgingly—‘you can have it.’
‘I didn’t want it on those terms,’ says Crosby. ‘And yet’—quickly—‘I do on any terms.’
‘Oh no,’ says Susan; ‘auntie is right. Why should I refuse it to you?’
‘Susan,’ says he, ‘is the feud so strong as all that? Will you refuse me your picture?’
‘No, I shall give it,’ says she, faintly smiling; ‘but I shall make a bargain with you. If you will give me one of Bonnie’s, you shall have one of mine.’
‘I gain, but you do not,’ says he; ‘for you should have had one of Bonnie all the same. But what has come between us, Susan? I thought I was quite a friend of yours. Why am I to be dismissed like this, without even a character? You must remember one great occasion when you said that anyone who was allowed to go through my grounds would be sure to treat me with respect, or something like that. Now, you have often gone through my grounds, Susan, and is this respect that you are offering me?’