Tiny nodded. "With thanks—not too many."
They stared at one another for some moments longer. Then Erskine sat down on the roller and folded his arms and looked extremely serious, though already the corners of his mouth were beginning to twitch.
"Now, you know, Tiny, I'm in loco parentis as long as you're in England. In this one matter you've no business to chaff me. Honestly, now, is it the truth that Lord Manister has asked you to marry him, and that you have said him nay?"
"It is the truest truth I ever uttered in my life. I refused him point-blank," added Tiny, with eyes once more lowered, as though the memory were not unmixed with shame, "and before his own mother!"
"In the presence of Lady Dromard?"
She nodded solemnly, but with a blush.
"Good Lord!" murmured Erskine. "And I was ass enough to think you were leading him on!"
She whispered, "And so I was."
For one moment Erskine stared at her more seriously than ever; then the reaction came, and she saw him shaking. He shook until the tears were in his eyes; and when he was rid of them he perceived the same thing in Tiny's eyes, but obviously not from the same cause.
"I don't think it's such a joke," said the girl, in the voice of one pained when in pain already. "I am pretty well ashamed of myself, I can tell you. If you really consider yourself responsible for me I think you might let me tell you something about it; for you must tell Ruth—I daren't. But if you're going to laugh ... let me tell you it's no laughing matter to me, now I've done it."