“Then promise me you’ll never speak to that fellow any more,” he said, quickly.
“Dick! Oh, how can I? But there, you don’t mean it. You are only a little cross with me.”
“Cross!” he retorted; “you’ve hurt me so to-night that I’ve been wishing I’d never seen you.”
“Oh, Dick!” she exclaimed, as she caught his hand, and raised it to her lips. “Please forgive me, and believe me, dear Dick, that I have not a single thought that is not yours. Please forgive me.”
“There, hold your tongue,” he said, shortly; “she’s looking.”
Poor little Eve turned away to hide and dry her tears, and then Mrs Glaire, looking quite calm and satisfied with the prospect of events, said—
“Eve, my child, it is past eleven.”
“Yes, aunt, I’m going to bed. Good night.”
“Good night, Richard.”
“Good night,” he said, sulkily; and he bent down his head and brushed the candid white forehead offered to him with his lips, while, his hands being in his pockets, he at the same time crackled between his fingers a little note that he had written to Daisy, appointing their next interview, this arrangement having been forgotten in the hurry of the day’s parting. And as he spoke he was turning over in his mind how he could manage to get the note delivered unseen by Banks or his wife, for so far as he could tell at the moment, he had not a messenger he could trust.