“Oh, very well, then, I’m as blind as a beetle and as quiet as a fish. I didn’t see anything; but, I say, didn’t it make Marie cross!”
“Oh, of course. She was surprised.”
“I tried to keep her in the drawing-room, but she was nervous and frightened—poor little darling!—at being alone with me, and I was obliged to let her come at last, or there would have been a scene.”
There was something very suggestive of a dapper little bantam paying his addresses to a handsome young pullet in the boy’s remarks anent the “poor little darling”; but Glen was too much troubled just then to pay much heed, so his companion prattled on.
For Glen was not satisfied: he wished that Clotilde had not been so yielding.
Then he excused her. She was so sweet and innocent. She had been so restrained and kept down; all was so fresh to her, that her young love, he told himself, was like Haidee’s, and like some bird she had flown unhesitatingly to his breast.
It was very delicious, but, all the same, he wished that it was all to come, and that she had been more retiring and reserved.
Still, she loved him. There was no doubt of that, and perceiving that he was dreamy, and strange, and likely to excite notice from his companion, he roused himself from the reverie.
“Well, Dick,” he cried, laughing, “what have you to say now to your story of the patriarchs?”
“Well, I don’t know. I suppose it must be all a flam.”