“Don’t look like a fool, Alfred, for Heaven’s sake!” cried Fanny; but she immediately recovered herself, and said, with a smile, “You see, dear, how I can scold if I want to. But you’ll never let me, I know.”
Mr. Dinks hoped certainly that he never should. “But I sha’n’t be a very hard husband, Fanny. I shall let you do pretty much as you want to.”
“Dearest, I know you will,” rejoined his charmer. “But the thing is now to know whether your mother has seen Hope Wayne.”
“I’ll go and ask her,” said Alfred, rising.
“My dear fellow,” replied Fanny, with her mouth screwed into a semblance of smiling, “you’ll drive me distracted. I must insist on common sense. It is too delicate a question for you to ask.”
Mr. Dinks grinned and look bewildered. Then he assumed a very serious expression.
“It doesn’t seem to me to be hard to ask my mother if she has seen my cousin.”
“Pooh! you silly—I mean, my precious darling, your mother’s too smart for you. She’d have every thing out of you in a twinkling.”
“I suppose she would,” said Alfred, meekly.
Fanny Newt wagged her foot very rapidly, and looked fixedly upon the floor. Alfred gazed at her admiringly—thought what a splendid Mrs. Alfred Dinks he had secured, and smacked his lips as if he were tasting her. He kissed his hand to her as he sat. He kissed the air toward her. He might as well have blown kisses to the brown spire of Trinity Church.