"Don't see him," said Routh, as he leant forward and gazed at her with eager admiration. "Don't see him. Don't lose this beautiful day, or any part of it, for him. You can't give him any real information."
"Except that his son is coming here," she said, slyly.
"I forgot," said Stewart Routh, as he rose and walked moodily to the window.
Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge smiled a little triumphantly, and said, gaily: "He shall wait for the news. I dare say it will be quite as welcome to-morrow."
"Don't say to-morrow either," said Routh, approaching her again, as she seated herself at her writing-table, and bending so as to look into her eyes.
"Why?" she asked, as she selected a pen.
"Because I must go away on Thursday. I have an appointment, to meet a man at Frankfort. I shall be away all day. Let this anxious parent come to you in my absence; don't waste the time upon him."
"And if the time does not seem so wonderfully precious to me, what then?" said the lady, looking straight at him, and giving to her voice a truly irresistible charm, a tone in which the least possible rebuke of his presumption was mingled with the subtlest encouragement. "What then?" she repeated. ("Decidedly, he is dreadfully in earnest," she thought.)
"Then," said Routh, in a low hoarse voice, "then I do not say you are deceiving me, but I am deceiving myself."
So Mr. Felton received the answer to his note, and found that he must wait until the following Thursday.