He shook hands with her in a mechanical manner, not even noticing in his agitation the nervous pressure of her fingers. If he had looked again in her face he would have seen that she relented; as it was, he was at the other end of the room taking leave of her father and mother before she had time to realise the decisiveness of the step she had taken. Scourging herself with reproaches, remorseful, miserable, Ella Millard got little sleep that night.
George Lauriston had hardly got half-a-dozen yards from the house when he heard Lord Florencecourt’s short, youthful step behind him, and a moment later the Colonel had slipped his arm through his, with a friendliness he showed to no one but his favourite.
“Well, George, which of the two is it?” he asked in a much more genial tone than usual.
“Which of the two!” repeated Lauriston vaguely.
“Yes, yes, you were talking to the sister all the evening; now there is only one subject which makes a young man so utterly oblivious of everything else. Come, you can confess to me; which of her two sisters were you trying to get her influence with?”
“I was trying to get her influence with Ella Millard.”
The Colonel stopped, pulled the young man face to face with him by a sharp wrench of the arm, and looked up into his face with his most steely expression.
“Are you serious?” he asked in a grating voice.
“Most serious, I assure you, sir.”
“You asked that yellow-skinned, swarthy little girl to marry you?”