"It will be my delight to do so!"
He caught her hand and kissed it ardently, and drew her slightly toward him, looking at her longingly, as if pleading for a closer kiss.
But she smiled and shook her head, saying, archly:
"Remember—remember, if I come here to see you, you must treat me with some respectful reserve, or I will never come again."
"I will do exactly as you wish. I am your slave, and can do no otherwise than as you bid me," he said, with a sigh.
"That is a good, dear boy!" she answered, patting his cheeks; and then adding, archly, "A few days, you know, and 'the tables will be turned.' It will then be you who will have the right to command, and some one else who must obey."
As the Circe murmured these words, his color went and came, and when she ceased he panted out his answer:
"Oh, the thought of ever having you for my own is—too much rapture to be credited! But, Mary, my queen Mary, then and ever I shall be your slave as now!"
"Well, we'll see," she murmured, smiling and caressing him. "But now I am tired and hungry, and you are forgetting the duties of a host."
"I am forgetting everything in looking at your beautiful face. But now, will you let me take off your bonnet and shawl here, or will you go into the next room and do it for yourself, I remaining here until you come back?"