I feebly protested my sincerity.
“I knew him last year in Oxford,” she explained; “but he refuses to know me now. He is afraid of me.”
“Surely not!” I exclaimed. “Why should he be afraid?”
She did not answer me, but went on to speak of other things.
“Will you promise me something?” she asked.
“Of course I will. What is it?”
“I want you to promise always to sit at this table for your meals. They never lay more than two places here. If you speak to the head waiter, he will reserve that place for you.”
“You are very kind,” I said; “I shall be delighted. Thanks awfully for asking me.”
And, this time, I meant every word I said.
In a few minutes we rose from the table and prepared to leave the room. She preceded me, and, in passing Lovelace, gazed at him with a look so despairing and beseeching that I could but wonder he maintained so undisturbed a countenance.