“Isabel.”
This letter went into the post-bag, and Isabel only thought of it from time to time. On the following afternoon she was again in the arbour, and alone with Asquith. She had found him here talking to Ada, and the latter had subsequently left them.
“Miss Warren is—what shall I say?—considerably humanised since I last talked with her,” Robert observed.
“I notice it.”
When they had exchanged a few words, Isabel spoke of seeking the other people, and rose from her seat.
“Will you stay a minute?” he said, quite composedly.
She did not resume her seat, and did not reply.
“I said something in a jesting way yesterday, which I meant in earnest,” Robert continued, leaning his elbow on a rustic table. “I thought of waiting another year before saying it, but a year after all is a good piece of life.”
“Robert, don’t say it!” she broke in. “I cannot answer as you wish me to, and—it is too painful. It was a jest, and nothing more.”
He took her hand, and she allowed him to hold it.