“Never wrote to him in my life,” said Cecil; “but look here, Emily!”
She did not look there, but down at her clasped hands. After a glance around the empty tea room, Cecil bent forward and took one of these hands.
“Look here!” he said again. “Do you mean—you poor little kid!—do you mean there’s something you don’t like to tell him yourself? Denis is such a confoundedly high-minded—”
“Oh, no!” cried Emily, shocked. “Mercy, no! I only thought—if you were going to write—” Well, she had to finish it now. “I thought maybe you’d tell him that you’d met me, and that you—you didn’t think I was so horrible.”
Cecil looked at her for a moment with a singular expression.
“I see!” he said, with a faint smile. “I don’t think you’re exactly horrible, Emily; but still, I don’t think I’d better write and tell old Denis so.”
“Why?”
“Well, you see—”
Emily, looking at him, did see, in a vague, uneasy fashion. She did not care to ask Cecil for any explanation. Suddenly she didn’t want to talk to him any more. She made all sorts of polite excuses, which he accepted very good-humoredly, and they parted in the most friendly way; but in her heart, Emily never wanted to see him again.
She cried herself to sleep that night, longing for her dear, honest, comprehensible Denis, and wishing she need see nobody else but Denis all the rest of her life.