“I say,” he said, after a silence of some ten minutes or so,—“I say, I think you are very nice. I admire you greatly.”
“You are very obliging,” said Thyrza demurely.
There was another pause, after which Rudolf spoke again.
“I say, I mean to come over here very often to see you.”
“Indeed?” replied Thyrza with a glance at the candle. Alas! not a quarter of it had yet been expended.
“You don’t dislike me, do you, Miss Rivers?” inquired her suitor, after a third and still longer interval.
“I don’t know why I should,” was the answer.
Deriving some confidence, apparently, from this extremely guarded expression of opinion, Rudolf made a further venture.
“I should like to give you a kiss,” he said.
Not meeting with any response, and proceeding perhaps on that most delusive of all proverbs, that silence gives consent, he rose from his place and leaned over her chair, out of which she started with very evident alarm. Believing this to be only feigned reluctance, he pressed forward to urge his entreaty, when suddenly there came a loud explosion. The candle flew all to pieces out of the socket, scattering the tallow in all directions, and the room was left in complete darkness. George and Margetts could hear Thyrza making her escape through the door, while the unlucky lover, wiping the grease from his clothes, made his way to the stable, and rode off as fast as his horse could carry him.