She looked started. A blush suffused her cheeks, and her eyes brightened all at once with a spring of tears. "Oh no! Impossible! Please do not speak of it!"
He said in a tone of concern: "My dear Miss Devenish, forgive me! I had no notion of distressing you, upon my honour!"
"You must think me very foolish!"
"Well," he said, in a rallying tone, "do you know, I do think you a little foolish to speak of your marriage as impossible! Now you will write me down a very saucy fellow!"
"Oh no! But you don't understand! Here is Lady Barbara coming towards you: please forget this folly!"
She got up, still in some agitation of spirit, and walked quickly away to Judith's side.
"Good God! did my approach frighten the heiress away?" asked Barbara, in a tone of lively amusement. "Or was it your gallantry, Charles? Confess! You have been trifling with her!"
"What, in such a public place as this?" protested the Colonel. "You wrong me, Bab!"
She said with a gleam of fun: "I thought you liked public places, indeed I did! Parks - or Allees!"
"Allees!" ejaculated Lavisse. "Do not mention that word, I beg! I shall not easily forgive Colonel Audley for discovering, with the guile of all staff officers (an accursed race!), that you ride there every morning."