'I'll tell you—but you must give me my head. I don't know what I said to you before dinner—I had had too many brandy and sodas. Perhaps I was too free; if I was I beg your pardon. I made the governess bolt—very proper in the superintendent of one's children. Do you suppose they saw anything? I shouldn't care for that. I did take half a dozen or so; I was thirsty and I was awfully gratified.'
'You have little enough to gratify you.'
'Now that's just where you are wrong. I don't know when I've fancied anything so much as what I told you.'
'What you told me?'
'About her being in Paris. I hope she'll stay a month!'
'I don't understand you,' Laura said.
'Are you very sure, Laura? My dear, it suits my book! Now you know yourself he's not the first.'
Laura was silent; his round eyes were fixed on her face and she saw something she had not seen before—a little shining point which on Lionel's part might represent an idea, but which made his expression conscious as well as eager. 'He?' she presently asked. 'Whom are you speaking of?'
'Why, of Charley Crispin, G——' And Lionel Berrington accompanied this name with a startling imprecation.