“How cold you men always are in speaking of each other! I think him a splendid fellow. He’s so handsome. He has such glorious dark hair—almost as dark as yours, Mr. Dinks.”
Alfred half raged, half smiled.
“Do you know,” continued Fanny, looking down a little, and speaking a little lower—“do you know if he has any particular favorites among the girls here?”
Alfred was dreadfully alarmed.
“If he has, how happy they must be! I think him a magnificent sort of man; but not precisely the kind I should think a girl would fall in love with. Should you?”
“No,” replied Alfred, mollified and bewildered. He rallied in a moment. “What sort of man do girls fall in love with, Miss Fanny?”
Fanny Newt was perfectly silent. She looked down upon the floor of the piazza, fixing her eyes upon a pine-knot, patiently waiting, and wondering which way the grain of the wood ran.
The silence continued. Every moment Alfred was conscious of an increasing nervousness. There were the Junonine shoulders—the neck—the downcast eyes—moonlight—the softened music.
“Why don’t you answer?” asked he, at length.
Fanny bent her head nearer to him, and dropped these words into his waistcoat: