“Yes, Denton, do,” cried Gertrude quickly. “He may not come for days yet, but you could renew them.”
“I mean for you to put them, my dear.”
“I?”
“Yes. There, don’t blush, my pretty,” said the old woman, smiling affectionately. “He’s to be your husband, you know, and I can see what you mean; you don’t want him to think you forward and pressing for it. Quite right, my child, but this is a particular case as we may say.”
There was a double-knock and a sharp ring, and Bruno gave token of his presence by starting out from under the table and uttering a fierce bay.
“Down, Bruno, down!” cried Gertrude, colouring deeply and then turning pale.
“That’s a strange knock, Miss Gertrude. Perhaps it’s Mr George.”
They stood listening in the drawing-room; the old woman, in her white crape cap, looking flushed and excited, and Gertrude, in her unrelieved black dress, white—even sallow—with excitement.
“What will he think of poor little insignificant me?” she said to herself; and her heart beat more and more heavily as steps were heard in the hall; then their dull sound on the carpet, the door handle rattled, and Saul Harrington marched in unannounced.
“Ah, Gertie,” he cried with boisterous familiarity. “How do, Denton? Here, keep that dog back or I shall kill him.”