"But you could tell me, Mr. Estey. I know you could. And, oh, won't you, please?"
"Why, er—Mrs. Darling!" He gave an embarrassed laugh as he sought for just the right word to say. "You seem—er—extraordinarily interested." He laughed again—to hide the fact that he knew that he had said just the wrong thing.
"I am interested. Indeed, Mr. Estey, it would mean—you cannot know what it would mean—if you'd tell me."
"Yes, yes, I know. I hadn't ought to talk like this. Ladies don't. I can see it in your face. But it's because I want to know so—because I must know. Please, won't you tell me?"
With a quick lifting of his head Mr. Donald Estey pulled himself sharply together. Flattering as it was to be thus deferred to, this flirtation—if flirtation it were—had gone quite far enough. He laughed again lightly and sprang to his feet.
"Couldn't think of it, Mrs. Darling. Really, I couldn't, you know!"
"Mr. Estey!" She, too, was on her feet. She had laid a persuasive hand on his arm. "Please, you think I'm joking; but I'm not. I really mean it. If you only would do it—it would mean so much to me! And don't—don't look at me like that. I know I'm not being proper, and I know ladies don't do so—what I'm doing. But when I saw it—such a splendid chance to ask you, I—I just had to do it."
"But—but—" The startled, nonplussed man stuttered like a bashful schoolboy; "it really is so—so absurd, Mrs. Darling, when you—er—stop to think of it."
She sighed despairingly, but she did not take her hand from his arm.