And having by this time talked himself into a regular entanglement, the worthy bear came to a sudden and unexpected standstill. Annie hastened to relieve him.
“You have, indeed, let me into a secret, Mr. Frere,” she said, smiling; “but it is quite safe in my hands, and it is a secret, moreover, which I am delighted to hear: there is no one in whose happiness I take deeper interest than in that of dear Rose Arundel, and I quite approve of the step you hint at as being likely to secure it. You must allow me to offer you my warmest congratulations.”
“Thank ye, thank ye,” returned Frere, looking most comically bashful, and routing his hair about insanely in his embarrassment, “I certainly do hope to make her happy, God bless her; though I don’t think you can judge much about it one way or other, seeing that I may be a Bear in reality (she calls me one in fun, you know), meaning to eat her up bodily for aught you can tell. As to its being much of a secret, too many people know it, too many women in particular, to render that possible; so, though I don’t want it announced in the Times till the event actually comes off, you need not put any violent constraint upon your natural communicativeness, for I am not so ignorant of the idiosyncrasies of the fair sex as to forget the pain and grief constrained silence occasions them.”
Annie made a playful rejoinder, and then, after a minute’s pause, ventured timidly to ask, “I hope Mr. Arundel continues to gain strength. I—that is my father—and indeed all of us were so grieved to hear of his illness!”
Frere fixed his large eyes upon her as he replied gruffly, “Yes, he’s getting on well enough for anything I know to the contrary; but he’s as weak as a child. It will be months before he becomes anything like the man he was; he’s been unpleasantly near supplying a vacancy in some moist graveyard of this amphibious city; small thanks to those who helped to bring him to such a condition.”
Annie turned very pale at this somewhat unfeeling speech, but she managed to stammer out, “I thought, that is, we were told that it was a fever, produced by exposure to malaria, from which Mr. Arundel had suffered.”
“A fever it was, and no mistake,” was the reply; “such a fever as I should be very sorry to fall in the way of catching, I can tell you.”
“And yet you have nursed him through it with the most unceasing self-devotion. You see I know you better than you are aware of, Mr. Frere,” interrupted Annie with a beaming smile.
“Nurse him! why, of course I did; if I hadn’t, I should have deserved to be well kicked,” returned Frere in a tone of intense disgust. “I’ve known Lewis ever since he was a pretty black-eyed boy of ten years old, and though he is a little hot-headed and impetuous sometimes, that’s no reason why I should leave him to die of a fever in a foreign land, far away from those that care about him. A nice sort of friend I should be if I did, and a pretty figure I should cut the next time I came in Rose’s way! She is not one of those who love people by halves, I can tell you; why, she actually dotes on her brother.”
“Oh, I am sure she does; it was that which first made me love her,” exclaimed Annie with enthusiasm; then seeing all that her speech involved, she blushed “celestial rosy red” and cast down her eyes in confusion.