“He has no heart.”
“You don’t know him as I do, Pierce. He has, and a very warm one.”
“Has he dared to make proposals to you again?”
“No, not a word. But he isn’t like the same. It was all through you, Pierce. I made him love me, and now he looks up to me as if I were something he ought to worship, and—and I can’t help liking him for it.”
“Oh, you must not think of it,” cried Leigh.
“That’s what I’ve told myself hundreds of times, dear, but it will come, and—and, Pierce, dear, it’s very dreadful, but we can’t help it when the love comes. Do you think we can?”
She slipped from him, and dashed the tears from her eyes, for her quick senses detected a step, and the next moment a quiet-looking maid-servant announced the dinner.
No more was said, but the manner of sister and brother was warmer than it had been for months; and though he made no allusions, there was a half-reproachful, half-mocking smile on Leigh’s lips when his eyes met Jenny’s.
The dinner ended, he went into their little plainly-furnished drawing-room to steal half-an-hour’s rest before hurrying off to make the call as requested; and he had not left the house ten minutes when there was a hurried ring at the bell.
Jenny clapped her hands, and burst into a merry laugh.