"I'm glad of that! I wouldn't vex you for the whole world, you know. If ever I do anything that you don't like, you must tell me. Sometimes I think I'm too clumsy—and rough and—and elderly, to hope to keep your friendship. And it would make me very sad, if I lost it now."
"No, no—you couldn't!" Lily murmured.
"Well, will you let me hear from you—often—and see you when you're in England again?"
"I hardly ever go to London, though, I'm afraid," said Lily naïvely.
"Perhaps I might be allowed to come to your part of the world, though. I want to get to know your father, and—and everyone and everything that belongs to you. I wonder if you realize that, little pal?"
Lily said: "I think I do," because she felt that that was what he wanted her to say, and then was terrified at the thought of what his rejoinder might be.
"Thank God for that!" cried Nicholas, with a sort of boyish, laughing heartiness.
She was half relieved and half disappointed.
"That's a bargain, then. We'll write to one another."
"Ought I to?" Lily faltered, with a sudden recollection of the obnoxious phrases as to hole-and-corner correspondence, once employed by her father. The remembrance caused her to crimson, and Nicholas Aubray looked at her very kindly.