“No, no,” answered Abel, laughing, “that shouldn’t be in the book. I should slay the great dragon who would desolate all Delafield with the swishing of his scaly tail; then you would place a wreath upon my head, and all the people would come out and salute me for saving the Princess whom they loved, and I”—said Abel, after a momentary pause, a shade more gravely, and in a tone a little lower—“and I, as I rode away, should not wonder that they loved her.”
He looked across the lawn under the pine-trees as if he were thinking of some story that he had been actually reading. Hope smiled no longer, but said, quietly,
“Mr. Newt, I am wanted. I must go in. Good-morning!” And she moved away.
“Perhaps your cousin Alfred Dinks has arrived,” said Abel, carelessly, as he closed his port-folio.
Hope Wayne stopped, and, standing very erect, turned and looked at him.
“Do you know my cousin, Mr. Dinks?”
“Not at all.”
“How did you know that I had such a cousin?”
“I heard it somewhere,” answered Abel, gently and respectfully, but looking at Hope with a curious glance which seemed to her to penetrate every pore in her body. That glance said as plainly as words could have said, “And I heard you were engaged to him.”
Hope Wayne looked serious for a moment; then she said, with a half smile,