“I am afraid you will not find papa very conversational,” said Claude gravely. “He will be having his after-dinner nap.”
“Ah, well, I shall not disturb him. I will go and have a cigar.”
He left the room in a hurried way, and as soon as the door was closed, Mary burst into a merry fit of laughter.
“Mary!”
“Well, I can’t help it, Claude,” she said. “Oh, how grateful you ought to be to me. I have saved you from no end of love-making. Did you see how wistfully he kept on looking at us?”
“No,” said Claude, with a sigh of relief.
“But he did, dear. Talk about the language of the eye; you could read his without a dictionary. It was, ‘do go, my dear Miss Mary. I do want a tête-à-tête with Claude so very, very badly.’”
“Pray be silent, Mary.”
“Yes, dear, directly. Mute as a fish; but it was such fun to watch his pleading looks and refuse silently all his prayers—for your sake, darling. Remember that.”
“You are always good to me, Mary.”