“May I sit beside you a little while in case you need anything?” he asked.
“No! no! Bobby! You will want your dinner, and your Mamma will want you. You had better go down again at once, and tell her that if my head is better, I will meet her on the Digue this evening!”
“I don’t want any dinner, I could not eat it whilst you lie here sick and unhappy. I want to stay, to see if I can help you, or do you any good. I wish—I wish I could!” murmured the lad.
“Your roses have done me good already,” replied Harriet, more brightly. “It was sweet of you to bring them to me, Bobby.”
“I wish I had ten thousand pounds a year,” said Bobby feverishly, “that I might bring you roses, and everything that you like best!”
He laid his blonde head on the pillow by the side of hers and Harriet turned her face to his and kissed him.
The blood rushed into his face, and he trembled. It was the first time that any woman had kissed him. And all the feelings of his manhood rushed forth in a body to greet the creature who had awakened them.
As for Harriet Brandt, the boy’s evident admiration flattered and pleased her. The tigress deprived of blood, will sometimes condescend to milder food. And the feelings with which she regarded Captain Pullen were such as could be easily replaced by anyone who evinced the same reciprocity. Bobby Bates was not a beau sabreur, but he was a male creature whom she had vanquished by her charms, and it interested her to watch his rising passion, and to know that he could never possibly expect it to be requited. She kissed and fondled him as he sat beside her with his head on the pillow—calling him every nice name she could think of, and caressing him as if he had been what the Baroness chose to consider him—a child of ten years old.
His sympathy and entreaties that she would make an effort to join them on the Digue, added to his lovelorn eyes, the clear childish blue of which was already becoming blurred with the heat of passion, convinced her that all was not lost, although Ralph Pullen had been ungrateful and impolite enough to leave Heyst without sending her notice, and presently she persuaded the lad to go down to his dinner, and inform the Baroness that she had ordered a cup of tea to be sent up to her bedroom, and would try to rise after she had taken it, and join them on the Digue.
“But you will keep a look-out for me, Bobby, won’t you?” she said in parting. “You will not let me miss your party, or I shall feel so lonely that I shall come straight back to bed!”