"Mr. Jonstone—Mr. Bob—Jonstone!" cried Colonel Meredith.
Mr. Jonstone's attention was presently attracted, and he gave his cousin a glittering look.
"I'll be only too delighted to step outside with you for five minutes," said Colonel Meredith.
And the cousins glared and glared at each other. But whether or not they were really in earnest, if only for a moment, will never be known; at any rate, each of them appeared suddenly to perceive something comic about the other, and both burst into peals of schoolboy laughter.
Only Gay's happiness seemed a little forced, and her mother's.
[XXXV]
Gay hardly slept at all. She was at her window half the night asking troubled questions of the stars and of the moon and of the moonlight on the lake. She had not, during the summer, taken her sisters' affairs very seriously, perhaps because she was so seriously engrossed with her own. She had, even in her heart, almost accused them of flirting and carrying on lest time hang heavy on their hands. Her own romance she had supposed all along to be real, the others mere reflections of romantic places and situations. But it began to look as if only her own romance had been spurious. It was a long time since she had heard from Pritchard. He had told her very simply that he was now the Earl of Merrivale, and that, as soon as certain things were settled and arranged, he intended to return to America. After that, there had been no word from him of any kind. She tried to comfort herself with the thought that if he was that kind of man—blow hot, blow cold—she was well rid of him, and she failed dismally.