"Well, you can't complain if I remind you of the tropics this dreary winter night; so I'll bear out your fanciful conceit. Your face, a moment since, was like a burst of sunshine."
"Your figure now is incorrect as well as extravagant; for, whatever light my face has, it is but the reflection of your kindness."
"I hope you do not mean to suggest that you have any tendency towards 'mooning'?"
"'Mooning' is the indulgence of sickly sentiment, is it not,—a diluted moonlight kind of feeling?"
"Very well defined. Does experience give you such accuracy?" said
Lottie, laughingly.
"I can honestly say no; and most surely not in your case."
"I'm glad to hear it," said Lottie. "I should be sorry to think that cold, diluted moonlight was the type of any of my friends' regard."
"You may rest assured," he replied impulsively, "there is nothing 'cold or diluted' in my regard for you—"
"There is the supper-bell," interrupted Lottie, hastily.
"What are you looking at?" asked De Forrest, uneasily noting the fact of their standing together within the shadowy curtains. He had just descended from the toilet which, with him, was a necessity before each meal.