Having seen her relative off the premises, Hero sped upstairs again, and danced into the drawing-room, exclaiming: “Oh, George, I was never so glad to see anyone! She was scolding me dreadfully when you walked in upon us, and I thought she would never go! I don’t know where Sherry has hidden himself: only fancy! — he came in here, not having the least notion my cousins were with me, and he cried out My God! and ran out of the room! It was the drollest thing! Did you come to find him?”
“No, no — though I shall be happy to see him, of course! I came to pay my respects, and to leave my card, and to discover if you would care to watch a balloon ascension at three o’clock?”
Hero was naturally delighted with this proposal, and said that there was nothing she would like better. “How kind it is in you to be thinking of me, George! Indeed, I thank you very much!”
“No such thing! I assure you — Well, I thought perhaps you might not have witnessed the spectacle. It is an odd circumstance that Miss Milborne has not either. She has a great fancy to see it, only, as it chances, Mrs Milborne is engaged with some friends, and so the whole project must come to nothing, unless — ” a disarmingly ingenuous smile swept across his face — “Oh, hang it, Kitten, the long and the short of it is that if you would but offer to take her up in your carriage, I think Miss Milborne would like it excessively! If you could but persuade Sherry to make one of the party, nothing could be more snug!”
“George, you are the most complete hand!” Hero told him, borrowing from Sherry’s vocabulary. “I have a good mind to bring my cousin Cassy instead of Miss Milborne. How confounded you would look!”
“I swear you are the best of good fellows!” George exclaimed. “Well, no! I don’t mean that! What am I saying? I declare I am so up in the world today — or I shall be, if only you will send a note round to Green Street, to beg Miss Milborne to bear you company!”
“Well, I will,” promised Hero, sitting down on the sofa, and patting the place beside her invitingly. “But what has occurred to put you in such spirits? Isabella has not — oh, George, she has not accepted you?”
“No,” he said, the sparkle dying out of his expressive eyes. “No, not that, but — Look, Kitten!”
He thrust a hand into his pocket as he spoke, and drew out a small package. This he reverently unwrapped, disclosing a dejected pink rose, which was fast reaching the stage of decomposition.
Hero opened her eyes very wide as she stared at this relic, and then, glancing inquiringly up at George, said in an awed tone: “Did she give it to you, George?”